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With all the trip reports floating around Fodor’s, I’m surprised we ran into anyone speaking French in France during our 18-day adventure that lasted from late September through mid-October. Once again, even after warnings from their children, our friends Kim and Mary joined us on this trip.

Despite the fact that my liver is now only slightly better off than those of the ducks and geese we saw (and devoured) in the Dordogne (yes, I have a full blown case of foie gras remorse), our journey through the Dordogne (five nights in Sarlat), Loire (three nights in Amboise and one in the underrated city of Angers), Normandy (three nights in Bayeux and one night in Honfleur) and Paris (two nights at the beginning and three at the end) was completed without causing an international incident.

Outside of a minor (although pretty, damn bloody) injury at the Limoges’ train station (I’m getting old) and a harrowing, yet rather enthralling, drive through the streets of Paris (I swear I was NOT the guy who hit the Arc de Triomphe), we escaped relatively unscathed.

The French countryside of the Dordogne was all it was cracked up to be and more, the Loire chateaux once again impressed, Bayeux’s tapestry and the D-Day tour we took illuminated us and Honfleur turned out to be a terrific spot to relax before heading back to Paris (and my death-defying drive through the city).

Unlike French school children, we did our homework before we left, so we were prepared for the excursion that had been delayed a year and a half due to that pesky “Near-Death” experience I had a couple of years ago.

Our hotel choices turned out to be mostly fantastic, and, except for a couple of meals early in the trip, we dined at some really good restaurants and had some incredible meals along the way. Luckily, our foursome stayed true to our motto of, “1,000 Stairs A Day or Five Miles of Walking Whichever Come First,” so we all did not return as fat as a stuffed goose.

For the better part of two weeks, we were “guided” by our dueling and multilingual GPS Systems that allowed us to see parts of the country we didn’t expect (and often times didn’t necessarily want) to see. During those driving excursions, my passengers complained continuously of nausea after my multiple circle-drives navigating the country’s many roundabouts.

So without any further fanfare (oh wait, there hasn’t been any), welcome to Tournez à gauche, Tournez à droite? Maitai’s Scenic Detour Through France

Days One & Two – Debugging Device, Are We Flying to CDG or The CDC, Look Ma No Hands, Don’t Drop The Soap, Chalk Talk, Hey Moe Is That Larry, Please Stop Drooling on The Monet, Do Not Close Your Eyes Under Any Circumstance and The Crepes Of Wrath

As I always say, any flight that ends with a safe landing is a good one, and obviously we arrived at CDG safely on our non-stop flight from LAX on Air Tahiti Nui. However, spending 12 hours confined in a plane that had more diseased people than the Mayo Clinic, was not particularly fun.

Before I get to that, the flight began a little weirdly, because as we sat on the tarmac at LAX, two flight attendants walked though all the cabins spraying something from an aerosol can. At first, I thought it might be some sort of deodorant spray to offset the fact that I had taken a rather quick shower.

However, we were told over the intercom (after the spraying) that it was insect spray, and this was done on all flights going to Charles De Gaulle (although they did not do this on our friends’ Kim and Mary’s flight). The voice said the spray was harmless, but if we were worried we should cover our eyes and mouth.

Curiously, this message was related to the passengers about three minutes after the flight attendants had come through the cabin, we figured the carcinogens had already permeated our bodies, and we proceeded to contact our next of kin.

Before we took off, the woman sitting in the row behind us set an all-time aircraft record for the most (and loudest) nose blows in history. Just as the plane got airborne, she blew such a honking loud one, I was sure we had hit a skein of geese. I have to stop watching Seconds From Disaster the night before we fly.

By the time we were over Chicago, the cacophony of coughs and the syncopated sneezing reached such a crescendo, I was just wishing I could get a breath of fresh air.

When I told Tracy that, she said (without missing a beat), “I wish we were sitting next to Mitt Romney, so he could roll the window down.” Since it was minus 57 degrees centigrade outside at the time, I was glad that Mitt’s pre-election request that airplanes be built with windows that opened had not been implemented.

About four hours into the flight, I believe more than half the passengers on the plane were hacking up a lung. “Are we flying to CDG or the CDC?” I said. Instead of love, it was Influenza that was in the air on this Paris flight.

A short time later, a voice came over the intercom and asked something you never want to hear on an airliner. “Is there a doctor on board?” I thought we were going to star in our own movie version of Contagion. Thankfully, we never heard anything else, and as we disembarked in Paris there were no dead bodies to step over, and I witnessed no chalk outlines.

Going through customs at CDG was a breeze (unlike our return to LAX), and within about 45 minutes Kim and Mary wandered in from their San Diego/Dallas/CDG flight, and the trip was officially underway.

The cab ride from CDG was 55€, and was quite a thrill ride as our taxi driver sped along the highway at high rates of speed while only occasionally putting his hands on the steering wheel or looking at the road. He was, however, quite obsessed with his cell phone, and it was at this point that I was happy Tracy and I had revised our will. On the plus side, we’ve never had such a quick trip into Paris from the airport.

We arrived at our hotel for the next two nights, the Hotel De La Paix Montparnasse (225 Boulevard Raspail). The lobby was charming and there was a nice breakfast room, but since breakfasts at hotels in Paris are usually overpriced, we did not take partake the following morning.

The rooms were small, but clean and comfortable. After a long flight, we all decided to take a shower (no, not together), and both showers provided a challenge. They were so small that…well, let me just say I am glad I declined that second croissant on the plane.

If you dropped the soap, it would have been quite an ordeal to retrieve it. We always love the unique bathing options in Europe, and this trip afforded the group many experiences.

Refreshed, we walked a block to a restaurant that was recommended by our hotel for lunch (the staff at Hotel De La Paix Montparnasse was excellent). Bistrot des Campagnes, 6 Rue Leopold Robert, had an enticing chalkboard menu. Of course, our bilingual (in our dreams) crew could only decipher about two of the 15 items, and our perplexed look did not go unnoticed by our server.

Our waiter, who I think might have been the owner or manager, was very patient and explained all the menu items all to us. Kim and I tried the chicken supreme (the hot, sweet mustard that accompanied this dish was remarkable). Mary had a salmon tartare and a confit de canard with pommes frites. Tracy tried the Napoleon de legumes (eggplant and zucchini) topped with an egg.

We shared a large carafe of wine, and the bill hit 76.30€ for the four of us. Our goal for the rest of the day and evening was to stay awake until the magic 9 o’clock hour to prevent the dreaded jet lag.

The fresh air did us well, so we walked a bit, bypassing a metro stop or two. Then we hopped on the Paris metro (my favorite mass transportation system in the world) and took it near to the Musée d’Orsay. The museum was pretty slammed on this Wednesday afternoon, but we lucked out when they opened a second line right as we got there. Admission was 9€, and in we went.

The first statue I saw looked exactly like Larry from The Three Stooges, so for a moment I thought we had stepped into the wrong museum. Then I looked back at the big clock and realized we were fine (not Larry Fine, but fine).

For the first 45 minutes or so of traversing the Musée d’Orsay, I thought I was going to be able to make it through the day rather easily. It’s when I started drooling near one of the Monet paintings that I realized I must Van Gogh back outside Toulouse this sleepy feeling (art humor is not that easy).

Still showing no ill effects from their long flight, our intrepid traveling partners stayed for a little while longer to enjoy this beautiful museum. Meanwhile, in attempt not to fall asleep on the sidewalk, Tracy and walked for a bit (until it started pouring) before returning to the hotel.

It was at about 5:30, as we watched CNN International, that our eyes began to get heavier and heavier, although we were trying with all our might to keep them open. Nearly asleep, Kim and Mary called the room to tell us they were back. We all agreed to an early dinner, so we didn’t lapse into a coma.

None of us wanted to have an expensive or drawn out dinner, since it would have been kind of a waste in our wasted condition (Kim and Mary were also hitting the wall by now).

I had heard about a nearby restaurant that supposedly served the best crepes in Paris, so we agreed to give it a try. We hit the Creperie Josselyn a little before seven and got one of the few remaining tables. By the time we left about an hour to 90 minutes later, the line waiting to get in stretched all the way to Lyon. Outside of four weary Americans, the crowd was pretty hip. We were just tying not to break a hip.

Sorry to say, but we were all rather underwhelmed by the dinner crepes. They weren’t bad, but maybe the place is a little over-hyped. I will say, however, my Flambé Orange Crepe smothered in Grand Marnier for dessert did give the place a nice comeback. We really weren’t all that disappointed in the meal, since we weren’t looking for anything special anyway.

To insure we would fall asleep, we stopped by a nearby café, Bisto La Petite Rotonde (it was raining pretty hard by now) and shared a bottle of French vin rouge to toast another start to a trip.

We all got to bed a little after 9 p.m., and just as I had hoped, nobody saw the light of day until eight the next morning (although it was still pretty dark at that hour). Eleven hours of sleep! Jet lag averted! Paris and future French destinations await! Yeah, life is good.

Next: Day Three – Cheer Cheer For Old Notre Dame, Church Goers, Silver Lining, Pantheon Sans Sperm, You Might Rue Our Description Of This Street, Sherpa Revisited, On Track For Limoges, Dinner Quandary and Didn’t I Buy One Of These At Trader Joes Last Week

Great start, maitaitom! Of course I must insidiously ask why you think that French schoolchildren do not do their homework.

I have never been satisfied by the concept of crêpes as a meal, although I have bowed to the custom a few times in Brittany. In Paris, it would never cross my mind for a second to have a meal in a crêperie, but there are so many of them (especially in Montparnasse) that I must be in a minority.

Okay, yes, I guess it is interestingly exotic when you live in a place that doesn't have crêperies.

"Of course I must insidiously ask why you think that French schoolchildren do not do their homework."

I think it was right about the time we left Paris or the day we got back that I heard that the French president said he wanted to abolish homework, so when I wrote that "we did our homework," that story popped in my brain. Of course, in 10 years (if I'm still around) when I reread about our trip, I'll probably have no idea what the hell I was talking about. Come to think of it, that probably goes for all my trip reports.

Just what I need here in New York after so many sad Sandy stories.. I was just afraid the report would be so extensive I'd miss Jon Stewart at 11. (9:50 here now)... but will look forward to many more episodes.

Day Three – Cheer Cheer For Old Notre Dame, Silver And Gold, Church Goers, Panthéon Sans Sperm, You Might Rue Our Description Of This Street, Sherpa Revisited, On Track For Limoges, Dinner Quandary and Didn’t I Buy One Of These At Trader Joes Last Week

Overcast skies greeted us as we left the hotel a little after 9 a.m. (I can’t believe I let this crew sleep in that late). After a quick stop at the corner pâtissière (it had been quite some time since I had a pain aux raisin), the fearsome foursome took a metro ride to the Cité metro station, and we walked the short distance to Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris. At some point on one of our two Paris stops I hoped to climb to the top of Notre Dame for no other reason that I have done it virtually every decade of my life.

When we arrived, it occurred to me that I had not been inside Notre Dame for more than a decade, so we wandered into the church alongside hundreds of our closest tourist buddies and tour groups.

If anything, it seemed even bigger than what I had remembered in the past. We strolled by a large chandelier that turned out to be La Couronne de Lumiere (The Crown Of Light), made in the 1840s by goldsmith Poussieigue-Rusand during a major restoration effort.

Soon, we transferred from gold to silver, bronze and gold when we paid 4€ to enter the Tesoro (or Treasury). It was a worthwhile diversion.

Exiting Notre Dame with St. Denis holding his head, I saw the line to climb to the top was more daunting than the actual climb, so we skirted alongside the big church to the East Garden. I promised Tracy I would try and satisfy her need to see some gardens on this trip, and, although it was getting near the end of September, the East Garden still contained some pretty flowers.

Wandering across the Seine, we window-shopped on the Île Saint-Louis during a light drizzle. The gray skies made the stores pop with color as we walked down the street, but then I had a utensil faux-pas flashback.

We walked by Le Tastevin, a restaurant where in 2006 I was severely reprimanded by the hostess for turning my fork tongs right side up, something that I guess is frowned upon. We decided to leave the area in a hurry in case she remembered the dastardly international incident from six years ago.

On the left bank, we found ourselves outside La Rôtisserie du Beaujolais, where Tracy and I had made friends with a chubby cat on Christmas Eve of that same year, but he must have been taking a cat nap as he was nowhere to be seen. However, in front of the restaurant was a cool sight of an electric car getting a charge about being in Paris.

We ducked in a couple of more churches, Eglise Saint-Nicholas-du-Chardonnet (I thought I might pick up a bottle until I was reminded that it was the wrong spelling) and Eglise Saint-Etienne du Mont.

On our last trip, we had visited Saint-Etienne du Mont and the area where they have some stained glass on display, but were not allowed in the actual church due to a funeral (yes, even I have scruples on occasion). We got to do a walk-through this time, and it’s a lovely church.

The stained glass is located in a small cloister near the back of the church and dates back to the 17th century. It’s a good way to appreciate its beauty up close and at eye level without getting a stiff neck.

It was getting near the lunch hour, but on our way to find a restaurant, looming in front of us was the Panthéon. The last time Tracy and I visited, we ducked inside the Panthéon only to find a Sperm Exhibit that kind of detracted from the beauty and sense of history of the building.

This is from my 2006 report: “We walked up to the Panthéon, and when we got inside there were white nylon things hanging down from the ceiling, and they were filled with white Styrofoam. It looked like something out of Woody Allen’s “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex.” Indeed, without too much imagination, they looked like sperm.”

I’m sure it wasn’t really a Sperm Exhibit, but that’s what it looked like to me, and I’m sticking to that story.

The Panthéon (sans sperm) is worth the 9€ entrance fee as is the detour down to the seemingly endless crypts below. From Victor Hugo to Rousseau to Voltaire to Marie Curie there were crypts for everyone.

The crypt for Louis Braille was particularly interesting because his name was nearly wiped off. We surmised that a lot of blind people who have visited here might have rubbed on his name, which has, over time, made it very hard to read. We could be wrong, but that’s our best guess.

It was now a little past noon and food beckoned. We found a nice lunch spot at Les Fontaines, 9, rue Soufflot. We all had Le Menu du Chef for 14€ apiece. The Velouté de Potimarron (Pumpkin soup) received the first “Wow” of any of our dishes on the trip, but everything was good, especially Kim’s Risotto with grilled shrimp and pesto.

Satiated, the crew was back on the road, and we just kept meandering through the St. Germain area people-watching and just soaking up the atmosphere.

Trying to set the one-day Paris church-going record, we stepped inside Saint-Sulpice, the second biggest church in Paris.

It was another beautiful church, but as we exited, we noticed the skies were turning a little bluer, and Kim asked about seeing the rue Mouffetard, a market street he had read about, and one Tracy and I visited on our walking tour with Michael Osman back in 2006.

We hopped on the metro, walked through a lovely park and shortly we were at rue Mouffetard. Now in the never-ending battle of rue Mouffetard vs. rue Steves (excuse me…Cler), most everyone prefers rue Mouffetard (yes, I know there are other more authentic Parisian market streets than these two, but we didn’t have too much time on this trip).

Most everyone, it seems, says rue Mouffetard has a “younger,” “more vibrant” feel to it. Maybe, but on this day, it had no vibe at all. It was the Kenny G of market streets…boring (but thankfully not playing his music).

While the four of us walked down the nearly empty street, Kim related to us that he had also never been to the rue Cler. I told him that since we would be dining at Le Florimond on our return in a couple of weeks, we would visit that oft-maligned street. As for comparisons…well, you’ll have to wait to read about the rue Cler vs. rue Mouffetard battle when we get there later in this report.

On rue Mouffetard, we did pass by a store whose name elicited some not-so-fond husband travel memories. If you ever read our 2005 Italy Trip Report (We Didn’t Drink All The Vino…), you might remember that I helped some attractive young ladies with their luggage as we arrived by train in Rome, unwittingly leaving my beloved wife to fend for herself.

Thanks to my chivalrous, yet in hindsight, idiotic actions helping these young women, Tracy was forced to carry ALL of OUR luggage off the train. “What am I, your Sherpa?” she asked (not in a joking manner).

Well, as we strolled down the empty rue Mouffetard, there was a store by the name of…you guessed it…Sherpa. It was a great photo op, but one I could have lived without.

The rain began pouring down again as we hit the final leg of rue Mouffetard, and it was just a short metro ride to Gare d’Austerlitz. I wanted to check out where we would catch the train early the following morning to Limoges. In Limoges, we would pick up a car and drive to Sarlat to begin a five-night stay in the Dordogne.

Of course, most people don’t need to go to the train station the day before a trip, but sadly I’m afflicted with the little known disease of Caboose-a-phobia, which I believe is the fear of reaching your track only to find that the train has departed the station seconds before you arrive.

After being assured that we would have no problem at the train station, we headed back for a little R&R back at the hotel, and after squeezing in and out of our miniscule shower, we scoped out a spot for dinner.

We didn’t have a reservation anywhere, so we started walking and looking at restaurants and their menus, and, as we have learned from past trips, sometimes every restaurant doesn’t suit everyone’s fancy. When that happens, the results can be less than satisfactory.

We finally “settled” on Winstub Au Bretzel located at 1, rue Leopold Robert, almost directly across the street from the restaurant we had dined for lunch on the previous day. Winstub Au Bretzel was a cute enough place, the server was friendly, but the menu really wasn’t “talking to us.” Although we had the opportunity to get up and leave, we reluctantly stayed.

It was an Alsatian restaurant, which would have been better had we been in the mood for Alsatian food. In any event, the meal was unmemorable (not bad, just unmemorable). The only thing I recall was that my dinner tasted quite similar to the Alsatian pizza I get from Trader Joes, and although I love Trader Joes, I expect a little more from a dinner in Paris.

We made a vow after this meal to choose more wisely, and if we found ourselves in a similar situation, we would get up and leave (which we would do much later in the trip).

In any event, we went to sleep relatively early because the following morning we had to catch that 6:40 a.m. train to Limoges. I told Tracy that I would set the alarm for 4:30. She said, “OK, but if you do, you won’t make it to the train station on time because I will kill you.” Sometimes I take her threats seriously, so I set the alarm for 5:02. What, me anal?

This was also the last night of the trip that my left arm would not be bandaged, because within about 12 hours, thanks to a self-inflicted luggage malfunction (Revenge Of The Sherpa?), I would be starting my own personal blood drive at the Limoges Train station.

Next: Day Four – In The Dark, Filet de Maitai, A Bloody Time In Limoges, Dr. Mary’s Bag Of Tricks, Introducing Madame Bleu, Unspeakable Crimes Against Humanity, Dueling Navigation Systems, A Sarlat Sensation, Mind Your Manoirs and A Great Name For Our New Parisian Business Venture

Well, it's not one of my favorite markets anyway, but I am willing to assume generally that it is interesting enough for its fans. All of the best market streets are never the ones that are talked about on the travel forums in any case, because they are all on the fringes of the city rather than in the center.

Just laughing and loving your report!! I have to whole heartedly agree with your Kenny G comment. I had a good guffaw - I used to call him "Kenny, Gee I am so boring" when my ex used to put him on the CD. Yawn.... (unlike your report)

Laughing along with your trip report. Especially the part about your fork turning at Le Tastevin on Ile St. Louis.

When we had dinner there last year MDH had the nerve to push his sliverwear slightly more apart as we were waiting for our 1st course. Madam came rushing across the room, pushed it back into the original place while saying. "No, no monsieur."

Lesson learned---if you eat at Le Tastevin, DO NOT move or turn the silverwear! Besides that, the food wasn't that good.

Having recently returned from Sarlat I am anxiously waiting for your next entertaining post.

When we had dinner there last year MDH had the nerve to push his sliverwear slightly more apart as we were waiting for our 1st course. Madam came rushing across the room, pushed it back into the original place while saying. "No, no monsieur."

Lesson learned---if you eat at Le Tastevin, DO NOT move or turn the silverwear! Besides that, the food wasn't that good.>

Day Four – In The Dark, Filet de Maitai, A Bloody Time In Limoges, Dr. Mary’s Bag Of Tricks, Introducing Madame Bleu, Unspeakable Crimes Against Humanity, Dueling Navigation Systems, A Sarlat Sensation, Mind Your Manoirs and A Great Name For Our New Business Venture

Anyone can relax on vacations, unless, of course, you travel with me. Today’s schedule would be a good example of why Tuscan Tom’s Tours (even when operating in France) are not for the casual traveler.

Alarms in two rooms at the Hotel De La Paix Montparnasse started ringing shortly after five, because we had a train to catch…the 6:40 to Limoges. Our taxi got us to the station about a half hour before our scheduled boarding.

Once the track was announced, and we asked a conductor (well, he did look a little like Leonard Bernstein) which car was the correct one to board, we climbed the steps onto our car and right into…total darkness.

A funny trick French train officials seem to like to play on unsuspecting, caffeine-deprived tourists is to keep the car totally dark sans any lighting that might make it possible to find your seats without the aid of flashlight, or in our case, cell phone.

Although we had four tickets in this first class car (seats 33-36) that seemingly should have been together, it quickly dawned on us (even before dawn) that there were no seats 33 or 34. Since forcing Kim and Mary to ride on the roof of the train was out of the question (hey, we had two more weeks with them for God’s sake), we sat across from each other until the lights came on to determine what the hell we should do.

When the lights eventually came up, a very nice French woman and her daughter (carrying a cute cat) came up to us and said that although two of us were in their seats, they would sit elsewhere in our car so we could all sit together. Damn French! Why are they always so nice? Next time I visit France, perhaps I’ll go back to see where they hid seats 33 and 34.

The trip from Paris to Limoges was barely more than three hours, made even quicker by my five café-au-laits. I was ready to hit the ground running.

At the Limoges train station, we would pick up the Europcar that we would use for the next two weeks to navigate the roads of the Dordogne, Loire and Normandy. Everything was going perfectly, but as many of you know from past adventures, when it comes to our trips, “perfectly” is an adverb we rarely use.

For those that don’t know my medical history, I was hospitalized for 3 ½ months two years ago, and ever since my release I have been on low doses of prednisone, which has kept my RA from returning (minor miracle in itself). I also was on massive doses of steroids while in the hospital.

Although now on low doses, the cumulative effect of prednisone for the past couple of years has made my skin so thin I bruise when the air-conditioning blows too hard on it or if the dog sneezes on me. “Old man skin,” I call it (not so affectionately).

When I attempted to open the door to the Europcar office, the door was unfortunately stuck. As I yanked on the door, the rather heavy shoulder bag I was carrying slid down my left arm from my shoulder. As it reached my forearm, the bag decided to make quite an impression on me. Even without looking, I knew this was not going to be a Hallmark moment.

With the door now unlocked, I walked a couple of steps into the office before looking down at my lower arm, which was now bleeding rather profusely thanks to a chunk of it being filleted by the bag. Thanks to the copious amount of blood, I couldn’t actually see how much of my forearm was taken out by the evil bag. I really didn’t want to know either. I was not a happy man.

Bleeding to death in the train station did not seem very appealing, but fortunately Dr. Mary sprang into action, and she immediately reached into her purse that doubles as a medical bag when she is on vacation.

In fact, Mary’s purse could be equated to a clown car of medicine. She has a never-ending quantity of medical supplies that just keep coming out of her seemingly bottomless bag. I half expected her to pull out an X-ray machine with tech support when she stated, “You know Tom, I think I’ll just put some glue on this.” OK, that was a surprise, although by this time I figured I was ready for the glue factory. “If I was a horse, they’d shoot me,” I said.

Trying not to waste too much time (we had places to go dammit), I started to chat with the lovely woman at Europcar, while at the same time Tracy and Mary were swabbing me down with anti-bacterial wipes and gluing my arm into a semblance of what it was about ten minutes previously. I tried not to bleed all over the paperwork, and the Europcar lady pretended not to notice the makeshift medical team working feverishly on my arm.

Glued, bandaged and somewhat embarrassed by my futility and “old man skin,” I walked with the gang to our rental car, and after the incredibly nice Europcar woman patiently explained everything about the car, we were about ready to drive off when Kim exclaimed, “Tom, you gotta take a look at this!”

Stepping out of the car, Kim and I stared at the gas tank that had a huge “DIESEL” sticker placed right above it. “Where were you in 2005?” I asked.

We activated the GPS system that, not surprisingly, spoke to us in French. Dubbed “Madame Bleu,” her “à gauche” and “à droite” requests along with the frequent “maintenant” commands would guide us throughout the French countryside, albeit not always where we wanted to go.

Our first stop would be a somber experience. Just about half an hour from the Limoges train station is Oradour-sur-Glane, the scene of a horrific 1944 massacre of 642 French men, women and children.

I had read about visiting here, but I did know what to expect. The entire experience is incredibly powerful. The cost to get in the underground museum is 7€ (the 2€ audio guide is a must, in my opinion).

We then walked through the museum that documents in great deal the rise of the Nazis until you come upon the information regarding that fateful day in June 1944 and its aftermath. We were very impressed how this museum was set up and how it explained, in great detail, the history of those turbulent and terrible years.

Before we exited to the preserved town that was virtually gutted by the Germans, we sat through a film that lasts a little more than ten minutes. It is a sobering experience to say the least.

Walking through Oradour-sur-Glane is a surreal experience and you just have to wonder what kind of people could perpetrate such an act of atrocity. Overall, we spent about 90 minutes at Oradour-sur-Glane.

Afterward, we visited the rebuilt town and had a decent lunch at Au Bon Accueil Brasserie, where the pommes frites were the star of the show. For the second time on the trip, we had knives that would not cut our meat. “This country needs a good knife sharpener,” Tracy casually observed.

On the road again, we started on the two-hour drive to our base for the next five nights, Sarlat-la-Canéda. In an attempt to literally drive us crazy, Mary brought out our GPS system from our 2008 Central Europe trip, the “never-in-doubt, yet seldom correct,” Lady Garmin.

When Madame Bleu would say “à gauche,” Lady Garmin would say “Turn right.” When Madame Bleu would state “à droite,” Lady Garmin would say “Turn left.” Between the dueling GPS systems, my two great map-readers (Kim and Mary) and my excellent road sign reader (Tracy), by the time we reached downtown Sarlat I wasn’t even sure if we were still in France.

Arriving on a Friday afternoon, the town of Sarlat was hopping, and we weren’t sure where we should park. Following Madame Bleu’s (Lady Garmin had been laid off from her job about an hour before) directions, along with the keen eyes of Tracy and Mary spying a sign for our hotel, we scored a great parking place near our home in Sarlat for the next five nights, La Villa des Consuls.

The parking space was located next to a space that had a handicap parking sign, so we guessed that people believed this was a handicap space, too, although it was not (we got this space four out of the five days).

Speaking of handicapped, Kim took a funny photo of my bandaged arm (now throbbing like a son of a bitch) that I placed on the hood of a parked, Sarlat ambulance (the yucks always come first, even when in pain).

We were all blown away by the La Villa des Consuls. It was gorgeous, and the location can’t be beat, just a short walk to the main street in the medieval area. We had booked the Montesquieu, a two-bedroom apartment (152€) with bath/shower, and a veranda where we sipped wine each night before going out and sipping more wine.

After freshening up, we walked through the city getting a bearing on where we were, picked up a bottle of wine (maybe it was two) and went back up to our balcony to have wine, cheese, salami and crackers (always important to have a snack before dinner).

Speaking of dinner, Villa des Consuls’ owner and gracious host (David) recommended we try Le Petit Manoir, 13 rue de la republique, and he made reservations for us at 8 p.m. My arm felt much better after a few glasses of wine, so off to dinner we went.

I guess it was a little chilly for the patio to be open, so we were seated in a nicely appointed, but a tad stuffy, room at Le Petit Manoir. It was quite formal with a gray décor. Thankfully, in a few minutes our not-so-good dinners from our first two nights became a distant memory.

Kim had the 22.50€ prix fixe meal that included a Carrot/Cauliflower/Sesame Oil Soup (très bon), a Salmon main dish and Walnut Cake in a Chocolate Sauce for dessert.

Mary ordered a la carte and had the Ahi Tuna with Black Rice.

Tracy opted for the 28€ prix fixe meal that started with a Foie Gras in Brioche with a Poached Egg, a Confit de Canard with Mushrooms and Potatoes, and ended with the “Wow” dessert, Mousse au Chocolate (a white chocolate mousse with salted caramel).

Having never tried Foie Gras, I figured, “When in Sarlat, do as the Sarlatians (probably an incorrect term) do.” I had a Foie Gras Crème Brulee, Steak au Poivre with Mushrooms and Potato Gratin, and the aforementioned Walnut Cake.

Once again, the knife for the steak was as dull as 2001: A Space Odyssey (ok, nothing is that dull). The four of us joked that we should open a store in France that sells sharp knives and shower curtains. Tracy said, “Hey, we could call the store Psycho.” Yes, I know…you had to be there.

With a bottle of Vin rouge, the total bill came to 140€. I was glad the tip was included, because we dubbed our waiter Monsieur Sullen Pants.

After dinner, we strolled through the lovely town of Sarlat on our way back to the hotel. Tomorrow (Saturday) would be Market Day in Sarlat (as it turned out, the most expensive Market Day I ever attended) and our first day of exploring the incredible Dordogne.

" For the second time on the trip, we had knives that would not cut our meat. "

I think the issue is the quality of the meat. My father (who was in he trade) used to stalk out of french restaurants if those horrid little steak knives appeared while shouting over his shoulder "can't you get proper meat in this country" dragging his hungry children behind him.

I had a little mishap at the Limoges train station too, though nothing like yours. We arrived and the directions to the rental car agency were wrong (well, as it turned out the agency had moved). For some reason our phones didn't work there--user error, I'm sure. We wandered around perplexed for a couple of hours.

Agree with you about Oradour, very stark, very moving.

And so glad you stayed at Villa des Consuls! Glad to read David is still there, what a charming host.

Thanks for all the nice comments. I'm sure I go into way too much detail for most people, but I figure when I'm old and gray (oh wait, too late for that), I can look back at these trip reports to remember everything that happened.

TPAYT - That's funny that there was another "silverware incident" at Le Tastevin. I believe she has a peep hole where she spies on unsuspecting diners. That woman is consistent, though.

StCirg - thanks for the clarification. I was pretty sure Sarlatians was incorrect. I hope I do your beloved Dordogne (and now mine, too) justice over the next few installments.

Nice to see there are already movies about the trip. I'm sure royalties will be pouring in soon.
kerouac, since I have been writing magazine articles for the better (or worse) part of the past 25 years, I don't really find the need for a thesaurus. I do, however, find that vodka is a great vocabulary enhancer. As for Mr. Rick, sometimes he's good, other times...not so much.

Coquelicot - Tracy's use of "idiot" was spot on in your movie, and whoever the actor was who played me showed my emotions perfectly.

bilboburgler - you might be correct about a couple of the steaks we had along the way, but for the most part, the knives were the culprit, not the meat.

Finally, Leely2 - Yes, I can see why people rave about Villa des Consuls.

I will be the first to admit it; I really don’t care for Market Days in Europe (or anywhere else for that matter). Yes, I know I am in the minority, but I can shop for crappy trinkets and various fresh produce items at a number of Farmers Markets in and around where I live.

But as Tom’s Tuscan (Sometimes France) Tours leader, I listen to those traveling with me, and they were all excited and ready to explore the famed Sarlat Market Day on Saturday morning. Since the slight drizzle wasn’t supposed to clear for a while, if we were going to see one of these things, today would be as good a day as any, not that I thought the Sarlat market would be anything special.

As we all have found out on these trips, I’ve also been known to be wrong, and today, once again, I was wrong. I hate that!

The Sarlat Market Day had a much better vibe than most every other one of these trinket festivals I have ever attended. From the main drag to the side streets, Sarlat’s Market booths and tables kept me interested, and the stuff they were selling actually looked useful/delicious, at least for the most part.

After stopping by numerous booths (thankfully, without buying anything), we ducked (everything has to do with duck in the Dordogne) in to the Eglise Saint-Sacerdos.

I thought I might escape without making any purchases, but I saw a guy who was selling unique liqueurs or at least ones that were not familiar to moi. I succumbed to his selling technique and bought a melon liqueur, but as I began to walk away I saw he was also selling something called Liqueur de Noix. Well, I had never tried Walnut Liqueur, so I bought a bottle of that, too, but still I was happy getting away from the market for only about 16€. Wrong again!

After Kim and I walked through the covered market (open year-round), stopped by a little store for a healthy and nutritious sugar crepe, we stumbled upon Tracy and Mary standing next to a table full of linens. Their eyes had little euro signs in them, so we knew we were in trouble.

Tracy and Mary had found the Jacquard Tablecloth Man, and remembering what happened on a trip to Alsace about a decade ago, I knew there was no escape. Tracy purchased two tablecloths, and Mary purchased one, so Kim and I, whose wallets were full of Euros only moments ago, were suddenly Sarladais (see, I pay attention) paupers.

Tracy found it interesting that there were no matching napkins for the tablecloths. As a matter of fact, French restaurants seemed to be all over the paper napkin craze (high end paper napkins), even at some of the higher end places we visited. I’m not sure we had a cloth napkin at any restaurant where we dined on this trip.

After replenishing our euro supply, it was time to hit the road, and it was on to Beynac, where we would check out our first chateau (of many). Madame Bleu seemed to be at odds with road signs at times.

As we were to find out, just about every important site in this area is about 10-25 minutes from Sarlat, not counting my circuitous trips around the many ringstrasses, which is what we call all roundabouts since our first Vienna trip in 1996 (it doesn’t have to make any sense..don’t worry).

We arrived in Beynac, which has been around for about 900 or so years. Perched high atop the town sits the Chateau Beynac, which I thought we might walk up to on this still drizzly morning.

We made a quick stop at the TI, who said we could walk up to the chateau, but cautioned that we should be careful because the walk was extra slippery due to the rain. She then told us we could also drive there, which seemed like a much more prudent (and relaxing) decision.

Ten minutes (and 7€ apiece) later we were exploring the grounds of the 12th century castle. This was a great castle that all four of us enjoyed a lot.

With numerous cool rooms, lots of stairs (a must for this group) and incredible views out over the river valley, we toured (they give you an English handout) Chateau Beynac for about an hour. Even better, as we descended from the top, there were blue skies in the distance meaning that the weather gods were going to be on our side as the day (and weekend) progressed.

Another short drive took us over the Dordogne River to the Chateau Castelnaud, but it was time to eat. In the town below the castle, the restaurants were closed, but we found a pretty good one after we parked, the Restaurant de Pays Les Tilleuls, which was located below the castle walls.

After some filling omelettes, a Croque monsieur and a barrelful of pommes frites (why do they taste so good over here?), we headed to Chateau Castelnaud, whose inhabitants fought with Chateau Beynac all those years ago just so tourists could come and visit these places in the 21st century.

We walked by a knight in shining armor riding a stuffed horse (we think the horse was really stuffed), looked at weapons used to kill the other side and once again were met by incredible vistas accompanied by blue skies and white clouds when we walked the ramparts.

As we entered a courtyard to take a goofy picture of Tracy and me as Knights, complete with our heads sticking out from one of those touristy, cardboard cut-out tableaus, Tracy accidentally cut me with her wedding ring on my right forearm, once again drawing blood. Bandages were not far behind.

It was at this point that Kim and Tracy dubbed me, Sir Bleed-A-Lot, leader of the Knights Of Transfusions. Trying to stay positive (AB, to be exact), I took it all in vein.

We all ventured down a path looking for some Old Town supposedly located near Castelnaud, but after 10 minutes of walking and finding nothing of interest, we said “to hell with it” and made the arduous walk back up to the parking lot. They might want to have defibrillator booths alongside that path for old tourists who are suckered in to trying to find that town.

It was early afternoon as we scooted back across the river for my first real attempt to get Tracy to some gardens. These excursions usually end up in disappointment, as we always seem to arrive at the wrong time of year, but on to the Château de Marqueyssac we traveled.

Bertrand Vernet de Marqueyssac, who was the counselor to Louis XIV, built the chateau in the 1600s. It supposedly has about 150,000 hand-pruned boxwoods, some more than 150 years old.

There are numerous trails, and once again there were terrific views out on to the Dordogne Valley. We could have walked out to a spectacular panorama of the valley, but it was 25 minutes each way (plus we had already seen about 40,000 boxwoods), and I could sense our collective legs might not want to make that trek. We would, however, see that lookout just a short time later from a much different vantage point.

Although there were really no flowers blooming to speak of, this garden was well worth the trip. They must have a heck of a lot of gardeners.

It was about 4 p.m. when we headed for La Roque-Gageac, yet another town deemed one of the “Most Beautiful Villages in France.” Similar to Beynac, LRG seems to be carved right out of the mountainside, and I ostensibly was driving here to check out where we could take a ride on the Gabares (traditional flat-bottomed boats used for transporting goods on the Dordogne River in the olden days) in the next few days.

By now, the sky was blue with those great white, fluffy clouds that make photographers want to snap more photos. We parked near where the Gabares Norbert and Gabares Caminade booths were stationed.

It just so happened that the Gabares Caminade had a boat that was ready to depart in ten minutes, and, since there’s no time like the present, we purchased our 9€ ticket (that included audio guide), and it was off for a relaxing hour ride along the Dordogne River.

The audio guide was a bit cheesy (it was told from the viewpoint of the boat owners’ ancestor), but it was informative and no one sang,“Yo ho, Yo ho, a pirates life for me.” Looking at the town and buildings embracing the cliffs from our boat was pretty fantastic. The ride takes you from LRG to Chateau Castelnaud and back. The sun on the cliffs made the scenery even more beautiful…not to mention, the boat kept us off our feet for an hour.

Speaking of feet, from the boat we saw the lookout point at Chateau de Marqueyssac, and although I’m sure the view is spectacular, all of our feet were happy we had made this decision.

Back in Sarlat, we had some wine and breadsticks on our Villa des Consuls terrace before heading into town for dinner, which turned out to be a rather good one at Le tourney, 1 Rue Tourny. The place was jammed when we arrived about 7:45 and stayed that way all night.

My 22€ menu had five courses that included fried duck gizzards with peach sauce (I was definitely stepping outside my comfort zone on this trip). I also downed a ½ melon filled with white wine (Monbazillac), Duck á la Orange, a goat cheese/walnut salad course and, not to be denied that 5th course, a tasty Citron Merangue for dessert. Then I exploded.

Also a gizzard wizard was Mary who had the Gizzard Salad with walnuts and Coq a Vin.

Tracy eschewed the gizzards (and the five courses), and dined on a white bean soup and a Cassoulet de Canard.

Rolling back to the hotel through the Place de la Liberté (which is full of cafes and was full of touristas on this evening) a band started playing the theme to Zorba The Greek. It got a lot of the crowd dancing and, although I enjoy the tune, it stayed in my head all night. Fortunately I didn’t stomp around the apartment at 3 a.m.

Before going to bed, we toasted the day with some Melon and Noix liqueur back at the hotel. Our apartment at Villa des Consuls also had a nice living room area and a decent-sized kitchen.

We checked the weather report (which predicted sunny days were in our future) on our iPad, and that was a good thing because we still had lots more of the Dordogne to explore and only three more days to do it.

Next: Day Six - There’s A Man With A Gun Over There, Visiting Chateau Josephine Baker, For The Birds, Chasing Windmills, A Domme Good Lunch, Chats & Chats, No Bertha Butt, Watch Out For Falling Rocks, Seeing Beynac In A New Light, Inhaling Soap and I Can See Russia From My Dessert

Although there were really no flowers blooming to speak of, this garden was well worth the trip. They must have a heck of a lot of gardeners.>>

Tom, there was a time that you may remember when we were following you around Europe; now the roles are reversed, and you are going where the annhig family's feet have trod, albeit several years ago when our foursome included our kids. They were dragged, if not screaming and kicking, then certainly reluctantly around several gardens in the Dordogne, but 10 years later we still remember the Château de Marqueyssac, not for the beauty of the gardens, nor the loveliness of the roses, but for the rudeness of the guide who thought that we couldn't understand when she said that with their regimented hedges and manicured parterres French gardens were "sensibles" and english gardens were undisciplined and stupid. The look on her face when we burst out laughing was a picture and one of the highlights of our trip!

PS - isn't it compulsory to buy something from "Tablecloth man"? we did too!

Maitai, a great story, and I'm glad to hear you're a writer, or I would feel very badly about my trip report effort!

This brings back memories from 5 years ago when we stayed in Sarlat for 3 days and another 2 weeks in France, during which time I managed to gain 5 pounds, despite 5 miles and 1000 steps a day!
Damn that fois gras, oh and the cassoulet, and the creme brûlée....

What did you think of fois gras? One the one hand I'd like to taste it, maybe one bite rather than bet an entire dinner into the experience. Alternately, acquiring any more expensive and difficult to maintain tastes might be foolish.

Maitai, I am enjoying your trip report since we made two forays into the Dordogne this year. I also have kept the 'Tablecloth Man' in business and was happy to do so. Can wait for the rest of the report.

Maitaitom, we're thoroughly enjoying your report! The Paris section has us reliving our Christmas trip of last year. And the Dordogne leaves us wanting to plan a trip there. We're now tentatively planning a trip to southern Spain in March, seeking a European warmer weather escape from our midwest winters. But reading your report has us tempted to plan our travels through Paris in order to spend a few days there. Never get enough of Paris!

We're looking forward to your ongoing entertaining sagas! Thanks for giving us some good laughs!

maitai, so glad to be reading another of your wonderfully amusing trip reports.

Glad you got to visit Château de Marqueyssac. It is beautiful. We were able to visit it during a summer evening when the beautiful gardens and pathways were illuminated with candles, and musicians played throughout the walkways leading to the panoramic overlook.

I too have encountered the 'tablecloth man' throughout France (he really gets around doesn't he) and I have an overly stuffed drawer of his wares to prove it. I love them though.

Day Six - There’s A Man With A Gun Over There, Visiting Chateau Josephine Baker, For The Birds, Chasing Windmills, A Domme Good Lunch, Chats & Chats, No Bertha Butt, Watch Out For Falling Rocks, Seeing Beynac In A New Light, Inhaling Soap and I Can See Russia From My Dessert

The weather reports didn’t lie. It was a gorgeous Sunday morning, and after finding a café au lait and croissant in town, it was back in the car for our initial stop of the day, Château des Milandes, quickly dubbed Château Josephine Baker. That’s because the most famous owner of this chateau was Folies Bergères star, Josephine Baker.

First, as we drove along a small road with water on the right, our attention was quickly drawn to a few men on the left holding shotguns. Worried that I had broken an unknown French traffic law, I started to put the metal to the pedal when Kim (the only one of us who has actually hunted anything in his life) assured me these were just a few guys out in the walnut orchard shooting birds. I just hoped there wasn’t a flock flying next to our car.

Undeterred by potential buckshot, we arrived at the chateau (9€) as it opened at 10 a.m. We walked around the lovely garden that occupies the grounds in front of the structure. The inside of Château Des Milandes is a tribute to the American-born singer, dancer and actress, who became not only an icon in France, but around the world.

There are many of her outrageous outfits and beautiful gowns on display, along with numerous photos from her illustrious career. Some of the rooms were stunning (dining room was gorgeous), and the art deco bathrooms were fun to see. They have done a great job maintaining the chateau.

Besides being a huge star, Baker was also served as a spy for the French in World War II, and there are documents of gratitude for her service; one from General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker raised 13 children (12 of them adopted) here at the chateau, and she also had an affinity for animals, especially birds.

After touring the chateau, we were told that there would be a Birds Of Prey Show in about 20 minutes. I wondered if they were just going to have those hunters come over and shoot some birds, but I guess they have the chateau has a show, too. There are plenty of owls and other birds of prey who live on the grounds. Unfortunately, their quarters are not quite as comfy as those in the chateau.

We took some photos of the beautiful creatures, but left before the show. I guess I’m just one who doesn’t think such exotic creatures should have to live their life in a cage.

Next stop on the Dordogne town tour was the fortified, medieval village of Domme, which we quickly renamed Domme DeLuise (only highbrow humor from this group). Domme is another of the three million towns listed as Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, which translated means, “yeah this is a pretty cute town.”

One of us had read about a windmill in Domme, and, in a Don Quixote minute, we were off chasing after that windmill. We walked for quite a ways when I said, “I hope finding this windmill is not an Impossible Dream.” At that moment I felt a little Robert Goulet coming on, but onward we trudged.

Finally we reached the elusive and rather underwhelming windmill, and to take a good picture of it, we had to stand in an awkward position. “Now we’re really tilting at windmills,” I said. There was silence, which either meant the joke fell flat, or the group was hungry again.

Walking past the little train that takes wimpy tourists (who don’t walk half an hour to see a stupid windmill) around the village, we found a nice spot on an outside patio at the Restaurant La Poiriére. As we dined, Mary said she missed her conversations with her daughter. I said I missed our cats. Tracy remarked, “Mary misses her chats, and Tom misses his chats.” Like I said, only highbrow humor from this crew.

It was such a beautiful day that we decided to revisit a couple of places that we really had given short shrift to the day before; one because of the weather and the other because we had a boat to catch.

We stopped back by La Roque-Gageac. I was hoping we could see the Fort troglodytique de la Roque Gageac (Troglodytic Fort) that was built in the 12th century. Sadly, there were no signs of Bertha Butt and the Butt Sisters (please see: Jimmy Castor), because falling rocks had damaged the Troglodytic Fort to the extent that no visitors could safely view them.

Since we had already walked up nearly 150 steps only to get shut out, we decided to take the “high road” through LRG. As we walked (a little more slowly after all those stairs) along the narrow street, we discovered it wasn’t only the fort that got hammered by rocks. There were numerous structures that had significant damage from these huge boulders.

Our final stop of the day was our first stop from yesterday, Beynac. In the light of day, it took on a new look and up we walked again to scope out the terrific views from Beynac.

As it was coming upon late afternoon, we spent a little more patio time at Villa des Consuls, while we gathered some laundry. Another great advantage of this hotel is it has washers and dryers that guests can use for free. Detergent was only .50€ per load.

Tracy had commented how nice the pillows smelled, so after purchasing the detergent capsule, for some odd reason, she decided to take a big sniff of it. Not a good idea since, although a capsule, she inhaled a good amount of detergent, which resulted in a sneezing frenzy. On the plus side, she had some erotic dreams about the Maytag repairman that night.

Since it was Sunday (lots of restaurants and markets are closed), I had asked David at the hotel about a place called Chez Vicky, which looked nice from the outside. It was one of the few places I knew that was open. Without hesitation, David shook his head and said, “Perhaps the worst.” Luckily, he made a great suggestion and got us reservations at L Bistro l’Octroi, only a few blocks away at 111 Avenue Selves.

At 8 p.m., we were seated on the second floor, and just like the previous evening, this place was humping.

After our gluttonous five-course extravaganza the previous evening, Kim had decided he was not going to overeat anymore on this trip. I decided to take up the slack and ordered way too much food...again.

For his meal, Kim limited himself to the Salad de Gambas, or as we call it, a Grilled Shrimp Salad (17€).

Mary decided on the 19.50€ that included Duck Foie Gras (tough to escape that on any menu in Sarlat), the boeuf special and a dessert to be named later.

Tracy went for the White Beans with Ham, while I started with a “Wow” Melone y Jambon with salad and onion jam (the best melon/ham combo I have had in quite some time) and then the boeuf special with scalloped potatoes.

For dessert Mary had ordered the Ile Flottante with a scrumptious caramel coulis. Mary asked the waiter if she had ordered a good dessert. He answered, “Not the best, but very good.” And it was damned good.

But the dessert that Tracy and I ordered was double-damned good. We ordered the Baked Alaska (incroyable), and after eating it I swore I could see Russia from my table and hear Paul Revere ringing those bells as he rode through Boston warning the British.

Needless to say (but I guess I am anyway), the caloric intake of our desserts exceeded the daily maximum limit.

The entire bill (including the requisite bottle of vin rouge (a 2010 Perigord Noir Vin de Domme DeLuise) was 90€. We were also impressed with the plating and presentation of all our meals. Up to this point in the trip, Bistro d’Octroi had vaulted to #1 on the restaurant list. Of course, it was still early in the trip.

Speaking of early, I had to rally the troops because tomorrow was going to be a big day, and we would need lots of energy to get a quick start in the morning. The short drives of the past few days were over (at least for tomorrow).

Our plans would include descending into the bowels of the earth, a visit to a religious shrine and a driving route that would take us through some more of the most beautiful villages of France.

Next: Day Seven - Wow What A View, Wrong Way Maitai, How Many Stairs Is That Again, A River Runs Through It, The View Was Better, Our Most Beautiful Village, (No Offense) Our Most Overrated Village, Carennac The Magnificent, Seeing Red and Are You Sure That’s Not The Place You Wanted To Eat

We also dined at Le Petite Manoir it was hubby's birthday and the owners made a it special night. Did you visit the bathroom there, or should I say throne room. We also had a delicious meal at bistrot d'Octroi. Where we shared the 9 course dessert sampler . Ahh such fond memories.

I will look forward to the next Instalment. We were also in the Loire and Normandy this September an d had fabulous weather

I want you to know that DH is bonding with you electronically. He broke his lower leg a few years ago (compound fracture) which was ugly and slow healing. Somehow the skin on that lower leg has remained thin, and burned very badly a couple of years later, while he stood in the sun at a pool on St. Maarten, chatting up the bathing beauties. Outcome: I could use your friend Mary on all of our trips. We usually have one or more bloody occasions. Good luck with that. It really is a drag. Hopefully you will get off the prednisone one day. Just keep on keepin' on!

I was actually thinking of stealing one of those suits of armor at Chateau Castelnaud to protect my skin, but realized that driving would be quite a hassle with it on. Then again, perhaps Tracy would have had a little Knight Fever (my apologies to the Bee Gees).

Day Seven - Wow What A View, Wrong Way Maitai, How Many Stairs Is That Again, A River Runs Through It, The View Was Better, Our Most Beautiful Village, (No Offense) Our Most Overrated Village, Carennac The Magnificent, Seeing Red and Are You Sure That’s Not The Place You Wanted To Eat

I heard grumbling from the troops as my iPhone sounded the 6:45 a.m. Duck Quacks (love a theme) to wake everyone up.

“Why do we have to have the alarm when we are on vacation?” Tracy groused (as you can see, she was in a fowl mood).

Not thinking it a big deal, I said, “Well, we get up at this time at home.”

In any event, we were all up très early, and a little after 8, we were on the way to our longest journey so far on this trip. Caffeine seemed to have everybody back on track. Villa des Consuls also provides café au laits (to go) at a very inexpensive price (did I mention we REALLY liked this place). They also have a cute breakfast room that we didn’t take advantage of during our stay.

We all enjoyed the scenic drive on this Monday morning, made a little more scenic by Madame Bleu’s occasional hiccups. I think she might have had a hangover (probably got into my Liqueur de Noix).

We had 11 o’clock reservations at Gouffre de Padirac, so the goal of this first drive was to see Rocamadour from afar to enjoy the wonderful view.

Stupidly (my middle name on vacation), I had forgotten to take the Fodor’s post explaining which road was the correct one for that amazing view, but as luck would have it we drove to L’Hospitalet. When Kim saw that town sign he said, “With all your medical problems. L’Hospitalet sounds like the town for you.” Having not had a medical episode for nearly 19 hours, the multiple-bandaged Sir-Bleed-A-Lot let the comment slide.

Besides being my new hometown, L’Hospitalet IS where you are able to get a stunning look across the valley to Rocamadour. After admiring the view, we decided we would have lunch in Rocamadour after our Gouffre de Padirac visit.

Madame Bleu had taken us on some dubious routes for the past few days, but since everything was so close, we gave our French GPS mistress a pass. We plugged in Gouffre de Padirac as our next stop, and she seemed rather confused asking us to make some weird u-turns and turns that led to nowhere.

With my car window open (fortunately), I followed Madame Bleu’s direction to go up a hill. About 50 yards into the climb I heard screaming (for once it was not from any of my passngers), and looking down to my left I saw a few guys wildly gesticulating. Most of them were yelling in French, but one guy must have known that only stupid Americans would go the wrong way on a one-way road. “Turn around,” he yelled in perfect English.

This near calamity must have shocked Madame Bleu because she got back on her game and finally we were headed in the right direction. We stopped in a town along the way to get a pastry or two, but I guess Monday is not a big day to have pastries since nothing was open.

We arrived at Gouffre de Padirac at about 10:20 and after a ten-minute walk from the parking lot, I showed the woman at the ticket window our timed 11 a.m. tickets.

She said I was early. I told her I knew we were early. She said (not so pleasantly), “Well you can go with the 10:30 group, but don’t do this again, and you know you cannot go on the 11 a.m. tour.” Not planning to be in this neck of the woods for the next 15-20 years and since we wouldn’t be back up from this tour until noon, I said, “No problem.” The cost is 8€ (plus berating).

The descent into Gouffre de Padirac, discovered by the famous speleologist (aka cave guy) Édouard Alfred Martel in 1889, takes you down 450 or so steps. As much as we love steps, we figured this day would have enough, so once we hit the three different lifts that eventually get you to the bottom we took them.

A short walk took us to where we would catch a 2,100-foot boat ride through limestone formations. We only had to wait about five minutes for the boat (they hold 11 people plus the boatman), and soon we were gliding on the turquoise water with our guide standing and steering the boat like a gondolier (well, he stood in the back like one anyway). He obviously had just returned from a comedy club gig, because he joked with the passengers in both English and French and pretended to try and put us in the drink a few times.

After safely reaching the other side, another guide took us on a ½ hour journey of the caves where we walked past stunning caverns, stalactites, stalagmites and waterfalls. The tour was quite informative, our guide was fluent in French and English, and he was also very funny. He made a joke about the French in English and added, “What do I care, I’m from Belgium.” Boom!

He also told us that the cave had formed about 10,000 – 20,000 years ago when it “caved in,” but he assured us that since it was not Friday the 13th we should be fine. He did warn about not coming here on the day the world is going to end in December. That Mayan Calendar story gets around.

Then we hopped on the boat back to the other side, bought an overpriced picture they took of us (what the hell, we’re tourists) on the boat and headed back up (via the lift). From start to finish, the tour of Gouffre de Padirac is 90 minutes, and it was a fascinating experience.

Not so fascinating was our next stop. We drove back to Rocamadour and parked above the town. We took the 4€ lift down to town and started walking through this incredibly touristic town.

Kim and Mary wanted salad and crepes, while Tracy and I were fancying something more substantial (turned out that would be chicken and more delicious pommes frites) and dined under a patio awning. They opened it up as I was finishing my beer (I virtually never drink beer at home, but European beer on tap cannot be beat), and we could look up to the buildings above. It seems the views of Rocamadour are better than the actual town.

Meeting back up with Kim and Mary, Mary said, “Let’s go see the Black Madonna.” I thought about singing Like A Virgin, but it would have been wrong.

From what I read, many religious people make the pilgrimage to Rocamadour to climb the 216 stone steps (Grand Escalier) on their knees to get to the Chapelle de-Notre Dame. We were not part of that group as our knees were already swollen.

Inside is the Black Madonna statue that some say aided in numerous miracles centuries ago, however until the Padres win a World Series, I am withholding judgment.

Sadly, we were pretty underwhelmed by Rocamadour. I vote with those that say take a look at it from afar and move on.

It was now past 13:00 and time for the Maitai Informal Les Plus Beaux Villages de France Poll of four towns on our afternoon agenda. They would include (in order of travel) Loubressac, Autoire, Carennac and Collonges-la-Rouge.

First stop was Loubressac, and it is a beautiful little town with medieval homes made out of stone (ochre), many with pointed roofs. “Maybe we’ll see a condo made of stone-a,” I said, which as usual was met by rolling eyes.

We also walked through the cemetery, and the four of us gave the town high marks. Tracy called the town “breathtaking,” and the views were also stupendous. Positioned throughout town, there were numerous artists with their easels painting the many lovely homes. “This would be a tough town to beat,” we all said.

Next, we made the short drive to Autoire. Although it is a cute enough town (actually the photos look better than what I remember Autoire looked like when we were there), Autoire did not grab us the way Loubressac had. It just didn’t have that quaint a feel. Maybe it had the bad luck to follow Loubressac in our beautiful town quest.

We attempted to go look for a waterfall just outside of town, and although it was a lovely walk through the forest, we decided to stop our quest after about 15 minutes remembering our windmill adventure from the day before.

Another rather short drive took us to Carennac, located on the bank of the Dordogne River. We went inside the Église St-Pierre that had been built in the 11th century.

Similar to Loubressac, there were a lot of colorful flowers and quaint stone houses. You could take dozens of photos from the small bridge in town. Carennac impressed us all.

Last on the Beautiful Villages Tour was the town of Collonges-la-Rouge. CLR has been around since the 8th century, and it would be the best of these four towns to stay, in my opinion.

Collonges-la-Rouge is constructed entirely with red sandstone, which makes it pretty striking.

We listened to some good euro-music on the way back to Sarlat, and Madame Bleu got us there in just over an hour from CLR. We had wine on the terrace before heading out to dinner.

Many of Sarlat’s restaurants are closed on Monday. Bistro l’Octroi was full, so Kim and Mary decided to have a pizza and headed back to the room.

Tracy and I saw a restaurant that was open, L’Instant Delice, and she said, “Isn’t that the place you wanted to try?” I said, “No, I’m sure that’s not it.” She said, I’m pretty sure it is (foreshadowing),” so we trudged onward.

We finally decided to eat outside at Restaurant du Commerce, a restaurant that gets pretty bad reviews on TripAdvisor, but I, for one, do not think TripAdvisor reviews are all that reliable, plus we were pretty hungry by now.

Restaurant du Commerce was nothing extra special, but the food was not at all bad, plus it was nice to sit outside on a starry, comfortable Sarlat evening eating and sipping wine. My beef carpaccio with pesto to start was very good, and the rest of our meal was completely satisfactory.

Incredibly, tomorrow would be our last day in the Dordogne. Time flies when you're eating foie gras. I had pre-booked tickets to see some very old bison and reindeer in the morning. We would also enjoy a relaxing picnic along the river. And, much to my traveling partners delight, there would be no early morning duck sounds to awake them.

Next: Day Eight – So Easy A Caveman Could Do It, Please Don’t Write On The Bison, A Beautiful Drive, Down By The Lazy River, Cave Dwellers, Where Is That Damned Restaurant, A Final Walk Through Sarlat and Finding Pasta In The Land Of Foie Gras

MaiTai, I am loving this! We were in Sarlat in 2011. We loved it so much, we are returning next September. We lost the sideview mirror of our car coming back from Loubressac. I will never forget that "WHOP" sound!

We were lucky enough to arrive to Rocamadour just as the last tour bus left, the parking lot was almost empty, and all the shops were closed up for the day.
It wasn't bad at all, in fact we quite enjoyed it, since there was a restaurant open that served wine and snacks.

I've never forgotten Collonges-la-Rouge. We had arrived late in the afternoon and the way the sunlight hit the buildings was magical. Have some photos somewhere which I must dig out...tho they really don't do justice to the actual experience.

I love Collonges-la-Rouges. But at the end of the day it's about as far from a "real" place in that part of France as is possible. It's beautiful. The color of the stone structures is stunning. You wonder how you can have come across this field of red stone out of nowhere. But it's a fabricated place, one designed to suck in the pre-resonated tourist who wants to think he's "discovered" something unique and wonderful. It's a sham.

The town itself is wonderful. IF you "get" the actual town.

The place to really find out about the history of the region in Martel\.

Day Eight – So Easy A Caveman Could Do It, Please Don’t Write On The Bison, A Beautiful Drive, Down By The Lazy River, Cave Dwellers, Where Is That Damned Restaurant, A Final Walk Through Sarlat and Finding Pasta In The Land Of Foie Gras

It was our last day in the Dordogne, and we left for Font-de-Gaume about 9:30 on this sunny morning. Since our reservations were not until 11 a.m., and I did not feel like another beat down from a ticket taker, we stopped in the town of Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac for a bite to eat.

Although the pâtisserie felt like a sauna, we all sat down for our morning caffeine fix and obligatory pastry gorging. My caramel éclair was especially delicious.

Then it was on to the nearby Font-de-Gaume, but not before we missed the entrance. For such a famous place, it has a pretty small sign, or maybe it was just the sweat in my eyes from sitting in that hot pâtisserie.

It’s about a 400-meter walk with some lovely views from the ticket office to the cave entranc, and at our appointed hour, the guide showed up, told us to watch our heads and in to the cave we went. He also warned us, for the first of 50 times, not to touch anything.

To help preserve the caves, Font-de-Gaume only allows 150 visitors a day, and early reservations are a must. We met an American woman in Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac who tried to get reservations at both Font-de-Gaume and Lascoux II upon her arrival in the Dordogne, and there were no tours available while she was there. I had made our reservations moths ago.

I hesitate to write the following, but they say the truth shall set you free. Font-de-Gaume never gets any negative reviews. From some of the writings I have read, it seems that visiting here is almost a religious or mystical experience, so my following thoughts will not be received well by many, I fear.

Inside the cave our guide took our small group of ten to various stops along the way to show us the 15,000-year old cave art. I think he spent as much time positioning our small group by height at each stop as he did explaining what we were seeing. I thought at one point we were posing for our second grade picture.

And what were we seeing? Well, with his laser pointer, our guide pointed out outlines of cave drawings, and for many (well, most) you really have to use your imagination to make out the bison, horses, reindeer, rhinoceros and mammoths.

I have a pretty vivid imagination, but some of the animal outlines were nebulous at best and some were, in my opinion, virtually non-existent. In fact, some of the more hazy animal outlines he “showed” us reminded me of stories about people who see the Virgin Mary in a waffle. I did really like being inside the cave, however (I’m a sucker for caves), and the tour was fairly interesting, but it certainly does not rank anywhere near one of my favorite travel moments.

Tracy was also not overly enthralled with the tour either, although she was kind of mesmerized by our guide’s lantern that he deftly wiggled around to help highlight the outline of the hard-to-find animals.

Mary thought the Font-de-Gaume experience to be more worthwhile than Tracy and myself, but believed they could do a much better job in its presentation. She said that she felt a little more history regarding the cave would have made the tour better. I realize they don’t know very much about its origins and who painted these things, but our guide could have done a better job, in Mary's (and my) opinion).

Our resident bison aficionado, Kim, was the only one of us to give Font-de-Gaume two, big wooly mammoth thumbs up. He thought the presentation was interesting and said he could see more clearly the outlines of the animals. Maybe I should have skipped the Liqueur de Noix the night before.

The other three couples on our tour, however, were ecstatic about the tour…nauseatingly ecstatic. After every laser outline by our guide of these barely visible creatures, they would gush like teenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert.

Kim had some thoughts on our over-enthusiastic tour partners and my disdain for them: “Perhaps a contributing factor to your reaction could be the insipid gushing student-pet response of the other folks on the tour. I found it humorous that they gleefully tried to outdo the tour guide, and each other, by insisting that the drawings constituted great art possessing sophisticated three-dimensional, shaded interpretive features depicting Mans struggle against nature. It is unclear to me how they could distinguish between great art and Barney Rubble inspired graffiti in the midst of a dimly lit cave. My natural contrarian instincts compelled me to want to smack them and disagree with whatever they had to say.” Damn, maybe Kim should be writing these reports.

I know that my thoughts about Font-de-Gaume do not jive with 99% of the people who visit it, and I would never dissuade anyone from going. It just didn’t “wow” me, but that’s ok. For the record, I thought Citizen Kane was overrated, too.

After exiting the cave, we passed by a large sign in front of Font-de-Gaume that had a picture of a bison on it (one you could actually discern). Kim gave me a pen and said for me to give him a devious glance and pretend to write something on the bison picture. He then took a photo.

Upon returning home, Kim sent me a photo-shopped picture with the letters SDS and a partial U to make it look like I was writing the initials to San Diego State University on the bison inside the cave. (Note: I first met Kim when we were freshmen at San Diego State in 1970. It’s good to know that after 42 years our maturity level occasionally stoops to that level).

We hopped back in the car for a beautiful drive to a quaint, picturesque village (there seems to be a theme here), a place where Kim’s description of these types of towns certainly fit. “This place is felony cute,” he said. The town is Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère.

Walking through the town located on the Vézère River, we went searching for a restaurant, three of which were closed. No wonder the French stay skinny, there’s never a restaurant open to eat.

Then a thought occurred to me (hey, it happens). I remembered someone writing about a Dordogne town that would be a great place to picnic, and I thought I remembered that this was the place. I guess the Liqueur de Noix doesn’t kill as many brain cells as I thought.

When Kim and Mary went inside a little church, I walked down to the river and saw a spot where picnic benches were lined up. There was also a little store to purchase picnic provisions. Although I am a tough trip taskmaster, even I realized it was time to Stop and Smell the Fromage.

First, I walked along the riverbank where there was a picnic table complete with beautiful tablecloth (Sarlat Market Day flashback), plates, silverware, wine glasses and a British gentleman who was setting it all up. I asked the chap (I think when you talk about Brits, chap must be used), what was up, he said that this is a place he takes his small tours for a wonderful Dordogne experience. It was quite a spread.

Le déjeuner sur l’herbe was the one-stop shop for our makeshift picnic. Since we had stopped to smell the fromage, we decided to eat some, as well. We ordered a plate of various cheeses, charcuterie, bread and a large bowl of Vichyssoise, along with a bottle of vin Rouge to top it off.

We basked in the glorious sunshine (ok, that sounds way too romance novel-like) and had a great picnic. If you are looking for a bucolic spot in the Dordogne, Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère is where you want to spend some quality, relaxing Dordogne moments. Of course, our group can only relax for so long, so we paid the bill and off we went for our next stop of the day.

La Roque Saint-Christophe is a large prehistoric settlement that lies in between Les Eyzies and Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère. Carved out of a limestone cliff, La Roque Saint-Christophe gives you a glimpse of what life was like about 1,200 years ago. I could just see myself (in 812 AD) kicking back with a martini watching a flat screen with those terrific views behind me. Perhaps I had imbibed too much wine on our picnic.

People started living here about 15,000 years ago, and in the Middle Ages it became more of a fortress. Before we climbed the steep stairs to where the cave dwellers lived and had their settlement, we looked up to find a fake knight. It immediately reminded me of one of the French knights in Monty Python & the Holy Grail. Fortunately he didn’t say, “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries” nor did he taunt me a second time.

After climbing the stairs we visited all the cavities that contained, among other things, a slaughterhouse, a smokehouse, a church, a kitchen and numerous other interesting “rooms.” We enjoyed our visit to La Roque Saint-Christophe very much. The cost is 7.50€.

We thought about driving next to the Jardins du Manoir d'Eyrignac, but I could see the troops were not up to another adventure today, plus we have to leave a few things for our next journey to the Dordogne. There would also be a very long drive ahead of us tomorrow, so instead we headed back to the Villa des Consuls, and while the others rested, I went in search of the restaurant where we would dine tonight.

I thought I knew where L’Instant Delice was located (for those not following along, yes it was the place Tracy saw last night, but I didn’t remember that). I went to where I thought the restaurant was located off the main Sarlat drag, but alas, it wasn’t the place.

I went back to the room (unfortunately Tracy was napping or my following wild goose chase would not have occurred). I found the address for L’Instant Delice (5 Rue des Consuls) and proceeded to try and find it. I walked to the far edge of town, where I thought the street it was located would be found. Wrong!

I searched high and low (literally) for this restaurant, and it could not be found. Demoralized, I once again glanced at the town map. I then realized why I couldn’t find it. I was reading the map BACKWARDS. If I could have given myself “the look,” I would have.

As it turned out, the restaurant was located only about 100 yards from our hotel, and yes, it was the place we had visited last night where Tracy had asked, “Isn’t that the place you wanted to try?” You know, maybe I am an idiot.

In any event, I made 7:30 reservations outside on what turned out to be a spectacular autumn evening. This dinner was to vault to #1 on the trip up to this point.

I had the 13.90€ dinner that started with a walnut salad. What made this place so special was the next dish, a selection of fresh raviolis (smoked salmon, gorgonzola, mushroom, truffle, goat cheese along with tomato and basil). They were scrumptious, and so was the chocolate cake for dessert.

Tracy went for the walnut salad, Eggplant Parmesan and ice cream.

Kim was our “big spender” on this evening, opting for the 15.90€ dinner that included confit de canard, while Mary had a delicious cassoulet.

We walked off our dinner with one last spin through the town of Sarlat. We all agreed this was the perfect place to have our base in this neck of the Dordogne.

Then it was back to the hotel to pack for our long journey to Amboise in the Loire tomorrow, where it would take some extra footwork (and a little stroke of luck) to eventually find our next fantastic spot where we would spend the next three nights.

Next: Day Nine - Kim Takes The Wheel, Talley-Ho Talleyrand, The A-MAZE-ing Race, Taking The Scenic Route, Scouting Mission, Paving The Way, An Oasis In Amboise, Horsing Around and The “Ten-Minute” Walk

OMG you make me laugh! You better watch your back or you could be hanged, drawn, and quartered for your irreverence towards Font de Gaume. Our reaction to Pech Merle was somewhat likes yours to F de G. I do believe the tour guide is EVERYTHING. A good one makes all the difference in the world. And your tour guide should have told the others to "put a sock in it."

Remember TPAYT and her reaction to Gouffre de Padirac? I am debating whether to add it to my itinerary due to the different experiences....

It's funny, I couldn't remember whether I had visited Font de Gaume or Peche Merle when I went to the Dordogne, but whichever it was, we loved it. However (big however), we could only get reservations for a French language tour. We had a tiny woman tour guide who spoke no English, of course, and we didn't expect her to. There were also some young Spanish--or maybe they were Italian? I can't recall--people on our tour. Someone in their group would whisper a Spanish (or Italian?) translation of what the guide was saying. Since my Spangliano is better than my Frengliano, I eavesdropped on the Spanish translation and then re-translated into English to my friend. Of course this made the whole experience more fun, and all of us--French, English and Spanish/Italian speakers, worked together to understand what we were seeing.

Luckily, no one was in a state of rapture.

The tour guide--and the tour group--always make a big difference for me.

OK, Tom, I can now comment on your drive thru the Dordogne East of Rocamadour.

Every report I read reinforces our decision NEVER to go to downtown Rocamadour. On our last trip, one year ago, we stayed, once again, at Domaine de la Rhue, a most pleasant B&b run by a charming couple. Ignoring nearby Rocamadour, and taking the advice of Mme. jouris, our hostess, we drove to Autoire reaching it from on high which I remember as being from the South, and from that aspect, and driving downhill to the village, it was glorious to view.

Tom, I'm guessing since I think you approached from loubressac, it did not appear so magical to you.

Then, we drove to Loubressac, and remembered that we had been there before, over 15 years before, so we stayed to drink in its beauty and its views, once agin. Luckily, i remembered, at 3 minutes to 13 noon, that stores CLOSE, so I ran in to the local 7-11, whatever it was called, and quickly bought two sandwiches and something to drink. We enjoyed lunch at a picnic tble in the middle of the village.

The best thing I can add to your travelogue about your favorite Loubressac, is that the public toilets are very handy, and extremely clean!

Carennac was another town I remembered as we walked along the street that parallels the river, and remembered seeing a nice French guy walking a wire-haired dachshund , (15 years ago) that made me so homesick for our dear Morgen back in the Hudson Valley, that I wanted to go home!

Funny how I now forget the names of French towns from 15 years ago, but I remember the feelings I had. Do you ever get that when you go back to an area?

More s'il vous plait. We are going to our beloved Dordogne this summer, which reminds me to refresh the restaurant thread. All your experiences, and commentary, are like a glass of vin de noix at an evening fete.

I will dissent and say that I quite like Rocamadour, but only totally out of season -- for example November to April. When weather permits, a meal at one of the (yes ---> "tourist")restaurants with an outdoor terrace hanging off the edge of the cliff is sensational.

May we all live long enough to duplicate this trip, mtt. A hall of famer report.

We must have lucked into our mid September visit to Lascaux II, where we drove up, paid our money, and waited a short while for an English language tour. Our guide was so good that she helped give it a boost into spiritual experience territory.

(Forgive sidebar unsolicited medical advice: have you heard of low dose naltrexone for autoimmune disorders? Some MDs will grudgingly give it a try.)

Kerouac, we thought it was quite fantastic, having a meal at a restaurant hanging over the edge, and us almost the only ones left in town, at least it seemed we were.
It was a ghost town where it was easy to imagine those "ghosts" climbing on their knees up the rock stairs. I got some great photo shots.

We totally disagree on Padriac(Kansas is right, we hated our experience) and Font de Gaume(we're with the FDG lovers)--to each his own I guess.

We totally agree on L'Instant Delice though. We enjoyed our dinner there so much that we returned again a few nights later. For a simple not too fancy restaurant, this was one of our favorites in Sarlat.

Remember TPAYT and her reaction to Gouffre de Padirac? I am debating whether to add it to my itinerary due to the different experiences....>>

I'm in the other camp - we loved Padirac as did our kids. TPAYT - what's not to like? 100s of steps leading you down into the chasm, a boat ride worthy of any tunnel of horrors, huge caverns full of ancient wonders, what's not to like?

Day Nine - Kim Takes The Wheel, Talley-Ho Talleyrand, The A-MAZE-ing Race, Taking The Scenic Route, Scouting Mission, Paving The Way, An Oasis In Amboise, Horsing Around and The “Ten-Minute” Walk

Goodbye Dordogne. Hello Loire. On a misty Wednesday morning, we bid au revoir to David and the Villa des Consuls, packed up the Audi and took off for Amboise (with a slight detour along the way).

Getting me to be a passenger in a car is about as easy as getting me to eat a pickle…in other words, virtually impossible. But since Kim had spent 33€ to become “an extra driver” when we picked up the car (obviously he thought I might bleed out before we left Limoges), I reluctantly handed him the keys and plopped down in the front passengers’ seat (on this trip “Back Seat Tracy” was joined by “Back Seat Mary”).

Leaving Sarlat a little after eight, we were headed toward Valençay, where we would visit the Château de Valençay, which at one point in its history was owned by Napoleon’s Finance Minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand.

Once we got on the main highway, it was smooth sailing until we neared the exit for Valençay. Madame Bleu, Lady Garmin and Map Mary all seemed to have differing viewpoints on where Kim should go (Tracy was reading a book as her expertise comes in later). For once, being a passenger didn’t seem all that bad.

Once again, Lady Garmin was put to sleep, and Madame Bleu had us going in what we felt was an incorrect direction (although still in the general direction). It was at this point in our journey, we definitely realized that she was programmed for the scenic route instead of the fastest route. This is where Tracy’s sign reading came in handy, and shortly we found the TI at Valençay. It had taken 3 ½ hours to get here from Sarlat.

Inside the TI, I asked, “Where is the best place to park for the chateau?”

“Right here,” she answered. As they say, even a broken clock is correct twice a day, so we grabbed our coats and on to the chateau (directly across the street) we walked.

We strolled up the long entrance, and once inside the beautiful courtyard, the skies opened up, which could only mean on thing…it was time for lunch. We quickly made a beeline for L'Orangerie du Château, the restaurant at the chateau.

I had a good pizza with salad vert, while Tracy and Mary’s choice of assorted veggies (lentils, ratatouille of peppers and salad vert, was quite delicious according to both of them. Kim’s charcuterie platter was, on the other hand, the loser dish of the group. Luckily, the svelte Kim was still on his “don’t eat too much” kick, so he was fine.

With the rain now stopped, we walked around the beautifully manicured grounds with gorgeous flowers, and then headed inside to the chateau. Price to get in was 11.50€ (which included an informative audio guide).

Château de Valençay was virtually empty on this day, which made our self-guided tour quite pleasant. Starting with the Grand Salon, we toured the chateau. The audio guide was quite informative, and the story regarding Talleyrand’s famous chef, Marie-Antoine Carême was most interesting.

Although Napoleon was not a food connoisseur, it seemed he knew the diplomatic importance of throwing a grand dinner party, so when he bought the place for Talleyrand, Carême came along with him. To prove his worth, Talleyrand had Carême come up with a different menu every night for one year, only using produce that was in season. Obviously, he must have aced his test, because he became Talleyrand’s chef. I’d love to have Carême’s kitchen at Valençay (and Talleyrand’s dining room).

After our chateau visit, we walked back alongside a large park (oh, the Frisbee games I could have played here), and walked over to the Valençay Maze. Of course, we were skeptical about the maze as we entered, as all of us had never really been in one that was difficult to navigate…until today.

Frustrated at every turn, this was a pretty cool maze, although we knew we had to get to Amboise some time later in the day, so getting through this thing at some juncture was mandatory. At many turns there were signs with what we surmised were clues. Sadly my high school French did not come in handy, so the clues were worthless.

Tracy and I lost Kim and Mary at one point (I was happy at this juncture that Kim had given me back the car keys), and in about ten minutes we saw them standing in a tower, meaning they had successfully navigated the maze. Fortunately, even after a week together, both couples were getting along (plus they realized I had the car keys), so they provided us with directions to get out.

Speaking of the maze, our drive from Valençay to Amboise was pretty much of a maze, and Madame Bleu took us on some incredibly narrow roads. Although it took longer than expected, the drive was a pretty one. We passed through some farmland, drove along the river (at least she didn’t out us in the river) and saw the sign for Amboise straight ahead. We were almost there.

When we reached Amboise, all bets were off, however. We knew our bed and breakfast, Manoir de la Maison Blanche, was just a few blocks away, but we were in the heart of a residential district, and our b&b had looked like it was out in the countryside from all the photos we had seen.

We finally reached the street that would take us to Manoir de la Maison Blanche, but, voila, there was one slight glitch. The road we were to turn on next was closed off to traffic, and we saw a sign that said the street would be closed for the next five days (at least that’s what our four expert French linguists deciphered).

As we contemplated our fate, rain started pounding (and I mean pounding) down.

Undaunted by the torrential downpour, Kim and Mary leapt from the car (yes, I had stopped it), told us they would try to find a detour and took off down the street and around the corner. Tracy and I then waited…and waited…and waited.

After roughly 15 minutes, we wondered if they had found better traveling companions, because there was still no sign of them. Speaking of sign, as we waited in the car, a passing automobile drove up to the sign that said the road would be closed for the next five days. Getting out of his car, an elderly gentleman (hell, he was probably my age) summoned two kids on bicycles over to him, and they proceeded to move the sign and the tape that was blocking the road. Back in his car, the man then turned and drove on the newly paved road. Well, when in Amboise do what the Amboisians do (also probably not a correct terminology of the locals).

We drove (very slowly) on the newly paved road and within about a block there was a sign pointing the way to the Manoir de la Maison Blanche. As we turned the next corner, we saw two people soaked to the gills heading in our direction. Yes, it was Kim and Mary.

Our dynamic duo had walked all the way to the b&b, met the owner and were returning with alternative directions bypassing the the paved road I was not supposed to be driving on. Having broken countless traffic laws in numerous European countries, they were not all that surprised to see us. Dripping wet, they hopped back in the car and we turned into the long driveway of Manoir de la Maison Blanche, and when we did we certainly left the suburbs behind.

Ahead of us lay a lush, green meadow, where in the distance we saw a couple of horses. After parking we were greeted by a dog, a cat and Annick, our lovely hostess for the next three nights.

We had two rooms located across from the main building. Both rooms were spacious, and after dumping our stuff in the room, we walked over to where the horses were standing. After petting them through the fence, we walked through the meadow for a bit, where we met Annick’s other cat and a second dog.

We asked Annick for a restaurant recommendation in Amboise, and she made a reservation for us at her favorite restaurant, Chez Bruno. "How long of a walk is it into Amboise?” I asked. “Oh, about ten minutes she answered.”

Then she made the mistake of showing me on the map how to walk into Amboise, not knowing about my map impaired brain that was put to the (failing) test in Sarlat.

Exiting the property, I promptly took our crew in the completely wrong direction, which we found out when we came to a dead end at a field. I quickly gave the map to Mary and back in the right direction we went.

Even with the correct directions, Annick’s “10-minute” walk to Amboise is actually closer to 20 – 25 minutes, which was fine since we had spent most if the day in the car. On the walk, we passed right by Château du Clos Lucé (Leonardo da Vinci’s pad), where we would visit in a couple of days.

Chez Bruno (40 Place Michel Debré) is located on the Amboise equivalent to “Restaurant Row,” virtually in the shadow of the royal Château d’Amboise. Annick’s choice of restaurants was spot on! The food here was delicious and threatened to take the top spot away from Sarlat’s L’instant Delice (for college football fans, this is our restaurant version of the BCS).

The restaurant is divided into two dining areas, a main dining room and a smaller room with tables and a bar, which is where we were seated (obviously our reputation preceded us).

Kim and Mary shared a “wow” dish, Feuillete de Gambas avec sauce armoricaine (I think). Translated it was a shrimp in puff pastry with lobster sauce. Tracy also had a “wow” soup, a delectable mushroom soup. I started with a very good escargot.

We found out that “Bruno” was the proprietor’s father, a man who died at a young age, so the owner named the restaurant in his honor. Bruno’s son also owns a vineyard just outside of town, and since Mary really liked their wine, she said we would come to the winery in the next couple of days, which will provide another story of its own for tomorrow.

On the way back to the hotel, we got a little dousing of rain, but not too bad. We settled in for the night in our comfy beds, and tomorrow we would prove all those “Two Chateau Maximum” travelers that we can double that slacker mentality and still have time (barely) to hit a very hard-to-find winery.

Next: Day Ten – Breakfast Of Champions, The Answer My Friend Is Blois-ing In The Wind, Chateau Liqueur Drive-By, Chiens Gone Wild, A Unique Chateau Garden Festival, The Wild Goose Chase To A Winery, A Chat With Kim and No Reserves At Reserve

MTT: it just gets better and better. I feel as though I'm right there with the four of you, and enjoying every step, well, maybe except for the rain-soaked ones!

You are now in places where I have never been, so your detail is not only hilarious, but worthwhile.

Re: the caves in Dordogne: Not an expert, been to Peche-Merle many years ago, and Lascaux II last fall. Lascaux II, though a replica, and poo-pooed by me on earlier trip, was mind-blowingly fabulous - most gorgeous colors, could REALLY make out the animals, guide was so-so, but no "gushers" in audience, easy to get tickets, a winner all the way for me. It must be the Chartres of caves. Go back.

Day Ten – Breakfast Of Champions, The Answer My Friend Is Blois-ing In The Wind, Chateau Liqueur Drive-By, Chiens Gone Wild, A Unique Chateau Garden Festival, There’s No Place Like Gnome, The Wild Goose Chase To A Winery, A Chat With Kim and No Reserves At Reserve

Even though we had a big day ahead of us, I must admit it was difficult to leave Manoir de la Maison Blanche on a slightly drizzly Thursday morning. That’s because our gracious hostess, Annick, prepares a breakfast spread fit for a King (or even a lowly Knight like Sir Bleed-A-Lot).

There were breads from a local merchant (she goes out every morning to purchase fresh bread and pastries), yogurt, granola, fresh fruit, cheese, tea and café. Coupled with Annick’s homemade jams (pear/apricot, strawberry/rhubarb and peach), this feast, served in a beautiful breakfast room adjacent to the meadow between 8:15 and 10, was the perfect way to start the day.

With all my eating, it was no wonder that by this juncture of our trip my “nice” pants I had brought along no longer fit. It was hard to believe that it was just two short years ago that I had no butt (see Death Trip Report) and weighed about 137 pounds. I think I ate about 137 pounds of croissants alone on this vacation.

No matter how much we wanted to stay and talk with Annick along with other guests, plus stuff our faces full of food, we had some chateaus to see. So, after saying good-bye to the horses playing in the meadow, the two dogs and the two cats, our foursome took off for our four-chateau circle tour of the Loire Valley. First stop would be the Château Royal de Blois, a residence where the Archbishop of Reims blessed Joan Of Arc, and the Duke of Guise met his ultimate demise at the hands of some 20 assassins.

The rain had stopped, and the winds had picked up as we drove into a parking lot in Blois, which was underneath the chateau. I hadn’t read too much about this particular chateau, but I must say we were quite impressed by Château Royal de Blois (I hope our photos do it justice). Admission was 11€, and the rooms are well described in both French and English.

Château Royal de Blois was the first historical residence to be restored and added to the historical register (at least that’s what we remember). They really have done a fantastic job preserving it.

When you get to the room where King Henry III had his henchmen kill his archenemy in 1588, there is a silent film that depicts the deed (sadly the assassination plotting plot took too long, so we never got to witness the actual murder). The chateau is said to have 564 rooms (including 100 bedrooms) and more than 70 staircases. Luckily, we didn’t get to see all of it, or we would still be in France.

At the end of our self-guided tour, we ended up in a grand hall where I sat in a king’s chair, draped a regal cloth over myself and had Kim take a silly photo of me. Sadly, when he emailed it to me recently, I looked more like a weary, nearly dead FDR at Yalta than a King.

Blois looked like a cool city, and I think it would make a good base to see the area. However, this was no time to dally, there were more chateaux awaiting us.

Our next stop chateau was about a half hour drive away. Tracy and I had visited it back in the 90s, and we thought this was the perfect drive-by chateau (being from Southern California we feel right at home with drive-bys), where the photos from the outside are actually better than within. Soon we were walking toward the massive Château de Chambord, a chateau that’s exterior is probably as famous as any chateau in the world.

Château de Chambord is the largest chateau in the Loire Valley, and the views of it are spectacular from virtually any vantage point. When we had gone inside in the 90s, we had seen the famed double-helix staircase designed by Da Vinci, but we were going to spend a lot of time with Leonardo on the following day, so we took about a million photos of Chambord with billowing white clouds juxtaposed against a blue sky in the background.

The weather was so nice, we could have stayed at Château de Chambord for hours, but we had some doggies to go visit. So, after a short drive plus a brief respite and snack, we walked across the street to Château de Cheverny. Of all the chateaus, this one seems to have the most impressive furnishings. That could be do to the fact it has stayed in the same family for six centuries, and they still live there.

Cheverny has been open to the public for 90 years and has only been closed on three occasions according to its literature: when the Queen Mom visited in 1963, the funeral of Marquis de Vibraye in 1976 and the wedding of its current owner in 1994.

Climbing up the stairs, we saw a huge pair of antlers that are 6,000 years old and are hung at the same height at which the animal would have been standing. Judging from his height, this animal would have given Godzilla a run for his money.

The rooms are all perfectly maintained, and the pamphlet they give you describes each room. From the tapestries to the furniture to a library containing 2,000 ancient books, Cheverny was as good the second time as it was when we visited back in 1998.

After we got back outside (the day was now even more gorgeous), we walked back toward the restaurant (Orangery) through an ornamental pleasure garden. I think it is called Jardin d’Apprentice. It was beautiful. The entire grounds of Cheverny are immaculate.

The day was so gorgeous that Tracy and Kim were sad we weren’t going for a balloon ride over the Loire. Since Mary and I like to err on the side of non-accidental death, we stayed on the ground.

My friend back home would have liked this place because Cheverny is the chateau that the Tintin comics were patterned after. However, at this moment I was more interested in walking through the park-like setting to get to something that more resembled Rin Tin Tin.

Since the residents of Cheverny (I think they live on the third floor of the chateau, but don’t hold me to that) still like to hunt, they keep 70 or so hound dogs on the premises. Let me tell you, there Ain’t Nothing Like A Hound Dog barking all the time, especially when they start bringing out the food. I mean these hounds were All Shook Up because to them It’s Now Or Never when it came to dinnertime. Thank you very much.

As the food started to be laid out on the ground, the hounds were all locked together behind a gate, and they started barking and howling even louder, and climbing on other dogs’ backs as they jockeyed for position. It reminded me of Black Friday at Walmart without the big screens.

We knew they weren’t going to be fed for awhile, so we walked over to the nearby Kitchen Garden, where Tracy spied some blue plants that have been her quest to find back home ever since. But it was time to leave these gardens, because I had planned a special Chateau Jardin Tour stop that awaited Tracy at our last chateau of the day.

Madame Bleu sent us on a scenic, but rather curious route to our next destination, Château de Chaumont-Sur-Loire. When we had visited 14 years ago, I promised Tracy a wonderful garden experience (although I never promised her a rose garden). I remember walking up the steep (really steep) trail to the chateau only to see a sign that the gardens would not be open until the next day (unfortunately we were leaving the next day).

Well this year, I was very excited because we would be visiting during its Domaine De Chaumont-Sur-Loire Festival International Des Jardins (roughly translated, I believe it means “Tom Is Finally Off The Hook”). With its theme of “Jardins Des Délices, Jardins des Délires,” this festival runs from late April though mid-October.

We parked by the river, walked a couple of blocks to the ticket window, paid our 11€ and started on the climb up to the chateau and its gardens, which afforded great views over the Loire Valley.

As we got closer to the chateau, near the top, there is a long wooden promenade that gave us an even better view. It’s called The Promenade sous les arbres.

After we walked the plank, it was now time for Tracy to see her gardens, and this jardin festival was definitely out of the ordinary. The Ministry Of Culture declared the gardens “jardin remarquable” in 2009. On display were 25 different gardens, which were the “creations of landscape architects, artists, botanists and gardeners.” The 25 gardens we would visit were selected as winning entries.

Among other things, we saw a garden of trees all painted in a reddish color (they would have been perfect at Collonges-la-Rouge), gardens with water features, one that had painted blue butterflies and my personal weird favorite, the Gnome Garden, which had dozens of gnomes painted gold and armed with rakes. It would have been an even better exhibit with a little Liqueur de Noix. Tracy enjoyed it and said the festival gave her plenty of ideas for our garden at home, although I don’t think we have room for an army of Gnomes.

As we drove back to Amboise, it was late in the afternoon on a relatively exhausting day, so I thought we would go back to our b&b to relax. However, Mary had other ideas, and as I have stated, I serve at the pleasure of my traveling companions (sometimes).

Mary said she wanted to find the winery that was owned by the proprietor of Chez Bruno, where we had dined the previous evening. She even had a map, which coupled with Madame Bleu’s directions and four tired travelers could only mean one thing…big trouble.

We knew this winery (Closerie Chanteloup) was near something called The Chanteloup Pagoda. By the time we were finished driving, it would have been easier to drive to a pagoda in Japan.

One thing I will say for our crew, however, once we make up our mind to find or do something, we never give up, and I’ll be damned if we didn’t finally find this little winery, participated in a little wine tasting, and bought a few bottles of wine. Mission accomplished!!

Annick tried to get us reservations at a restaurant she liked, but when we got back she had left us a note saying it was completely booked for the night.

We all relaxed for an hour and a half. It was nice outside, so the four of us decided to share a bottle of wine. As we sat there, one of Annick’s cats jumped up on Kim’s lap and stayed there for the duration. It wouldn’t mean much except that Kim and cats are not usually used in the same sentence, at least not with nice adjectives. See what a vacation can do.

At about 7:30 we headed back for that 10 (I mean 25) minute walk to town. We had seen how crowded Amboise was the previous night, so we hoped for the best.

A couple of other places we wanted to go were completely full, so we tried a place called La Reserve. They asked if we had reservations, and we hungrily shook our heads "no". But even with no reserves at La Reserve, there was one, last empty table with our name on it, which we happily (and wearily) plopped down into for the evening.

The food was fine, if not great. I enjoyed my very good pork tenderloin with frites, Tracy had a white fish with pasta; Kim opted for the smoked salmon with pasta and Mary had a faux-filet with frites (I have no idea what that means). The bill for the four of us totaled 100€, and the walk back to Manoir de la Maison Blanche seemed a little longer on this night with our tired legs.

As we walked past Château du Clos Lucé, we all decided that would be our first stop of the day tomorrow. One thing we knew, we’d be seeing it on a full stomach thanks to Annick.

Next: Day Eleven – Casa de Leonardo, A Walk In The Park, We’ll Cross That River When We Come To It, Belles Fleurs, Da Vinci’s Final Resting Place, In The Annick Of Time, Bruno Redux And How Much Is That Little Kitten In The Window

I feel that the château in Blois is often unjustly ignored, but I would additionally like to say that it is another perfect and inexpensive base for a visit the the Loire valley. The Ibis Hôtel next to the château is not one of the usual cookie-cutter Ibis suburban chain places but is instead clearly the former finest old hotel in town, just retrofitted to make it conform to modern standards. I seem to recall that it still had a charming old elevator, though.

Fans of Tintin might be interested to know that Captain Haddock's residence Moulinsart (Marlinspike Hall in the English version) is a carbon copy of the château de Cheverny.

I was lucky enough to catch the garden festival years ago when we visited, I thought it was great but the others weren't so keen. I was studying horticulture at the time so that may have had an influence on me.

With Villa des Consuls - which room did you have, can you remember? Do they windows to the outside, some of the rooms appear quite dark and only have windows after you have climbed some steps, is this just the photos or how it really is. I am looking to stay in this area next year but need a light and airy room with a 'view' from the room and am concerned this lovely looking hotel may not offer this.

"With Villa des Consuls - which room did you have, can you remember? Do they windows to the outside..."

ripping off my own trip report: We had "the Montesquieu, a two-bedroom apartment (152€) with bath/shower, and a veranda where we sipped wine each night before going out and sipping more wine." Yes, we had plenty of windows. Don't know about the regular rooms. Hope this helps,

Day Eleven – Casa de Leonardo, A Walk In The Park, We’ll Cross That River When We Come To It, Belles Fleurs, Da Vinci’s Final Resting Place, Is That Liz Taylor, In The Annick Of Time, Bruno Redux And How Much Is That Kitten In The Window

A little after 8:15 four people, with an appetite larger than Annick’s horses, waddled into the breakfast room at Manoir de la Maison Blanche. She might as well have put a trough in front of my face as I filled up on brioche and croissants slathered in her homemade jam. I just couldn’t say “neigh” to anything.

The other three thought about rolling my butterball body down to Château du Clos Lucé/Parc Leonardi da Vinci, but instead we hopped in the car and drove the short distance, since we had other stops afterward.

We opted to go for an 18.50€ apiece ticket that included a “Special Exhibit” that turned pout to be a royal bust. Clos Lucé was a summer home for French kings and a royal residence for a couple of hundred years, and in 1516 it became the home of Leonardo da Vinci thanks to an invitation from King François I. François made Leonardo “First Painter, Architect and Engineer of The King,” and the great da Vinci lived here for the last few years of his life.

The self-guided tour takes you through the Gallery, da Vinci’s bedroom, another bedroom, an Oratory, some salons, the Renaissance Great Hall and the Kitchen.

Downstairs, in the basement, are numerous replicas of da Vinci’s inventions, some of them thought of centuries before their time such as flying machines, tanks, automobiles and machine guns (which would have come in handy dealing with some of the tour busses on this trip). We also saw the stairs that led to the secret passage that led to the Royal Château d’Amboise; a secret passage fit for a King. The only thing missing at Clos Lucé was Nat King Cole singing Mona Lisa.

Stepping outside we entered a little garden area. When Tracy and visited here in the late 90s, we got sidetracked by a lovely (but heavy) rug at the adjacent gift store. We proceeded to lug the rug throughout France for the rest of the trip, but it still lies in our entry hall, so we have gotten our money’s worth out of it and my back stopped being sore in 2002.

This time we headed in the other direction (quickly) and enjoyed the Parc Leonardo da Vinci, where more of his inventions are on display in a tranquil setting. If you are a serious photographer, you could spend the entire day here. After a while, we came upon the “Special Exhibition,” which really did not add to our experience, but overall the trip to Clos Lucé was informative, fun and, dare I say, relaxing.

Back in the car, we next traveled to the place where a wife and mistress both lived (but not at the same time), Château de Chenonceau (11€). This was the residence of King Henri II’s mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Unfortunately for Diane, Henri liked to joust, and one day a piece of his opponent’s lance pierced Henri’s eye, and as soon as Henri bit the dust, his vengeful wife, Catherine de’ Medici, gave Diane the boot (although she just went to Chaumont-sur-Loire, so it wasn’t too bad a deal).

This is another of the most recognizable chateaus of the Loire. It stretches across the River Cher, so it was apropos that it was Sonny outside (ouch). This chateau has always had the feminine touch, so maybe that is why there are gorgeous fresh floral arrangements in virtually every room.

When people ask which chateaus you should not miss, this is certainly one of them. We spent a good deal of time here.

One of the stories that is interesting is the story of The Gallery, which Catherine built upon the bridge designed by Diane de Poitiers. In World War II, the chateau’s entrance was in occupied Germany, while the door on the other side (the south side) provided an escape to the Free Zone. This made it possible for Resistance fighters to pass along a number of people to the Free Zone, which is probably why the Germans had an artillery unit nearby that could destroy the chateau.

There are also dueling gardens; the Diane de Poiiters Garden that has a very lovely fountain and the Catherine de’ Medici Garden, which has a central pool. They can battle it out for eternity.

After our chateau tour, we hit a little place in town for a quick bite to eat, and we dropped Kim and Mary back at the hotel for a little r&r. I think they were “chateau’d out” for the day. Tracy and I got back in the car, parked in Amboise without killing any pedestrians (it was close) and started our tour of the Royal Château d’Amboise.

It was 14€ (with audio guide) per person (these chateaus start adding up over time), and we started our tour. Although not my favorite of the chateaus, it certainly is interesting enough, and we liked the St. Hubert Chapel, and we learned the Leonardi da Vinci is buried on the property.

Tracy and I then walked around town, had some delicious ice cream (Mr. Bottomless Pit strikes again) at the unfortunately named Glacier shop called Bigot. We also made a quick stop at Église Saint-Florentin.

I probably should have called Al Roker before this trip, because I had expected warmer weather and packed accordingly. Those shorts and some short-sleeved shirts never saw the light of day or the dark of night. To provide a little warmth, I bought a new sweater in Amboise.

Back at the homestead (aka Manoir de la Maison Blanche), the sun was out, which could only mean one thing…it was time for wine and cheese. The four of us were kibitzing when Annick came over, and we asked her to join us. This happened to be a day where we were the only guests, so she pulled up a chair and the five of us chatted for the next couple of hours.

She formally introduced us to her Great Dane, Taylor, named after Elizabeth Taylor because of the pooch’s blue eyes. We chatted on a number of topics ranging from the French economy, her history of owning the b&b and even a little bit of her love life (I am sworn to secrecy). When we ran out of wine, she brought out some more vin rouge from her stock and also some cold cuts to go along with it.

A little after 7 p.m. we told Annick that we had made reservations at Chez Bruno (we did that right after dinner the first night because we enjoyed it so much). We asked her if she’d like to join us, and since she had no plans, she said, “Oui.”

Walking to Chez Bruno, I think even Annick realized this walk was a little longer than she had believed, so she called the restaurant to say we would be a little late for those 7:30 reservations (total distance was 1.25 miles that Tracy and I calculated on our drive back from Amboise earlier in the day).

Dinner was once again fantastic, chatting with Annick was a blast (this is what trips to Europe…or anywhere for that matter…are all about) and even the walk back didn’t seem very long.

On that stroll to Manoir de la Maison Blanche, I started to pull up the rear (10 desserts in 11 days will do that to a man) and was joined by a couple of very amorous kitties, who didn’t want to leave my side. As we walked down the driveway, we told them we could not pack them in our suitcase and take them home, so please go back from wherever they came.

Back in our room, after about 15 minutes, Tracy and I were serenaded at our windowsill by the same two cats. It was just like home, except that the cats weren’t standing on my head.

Manoir de la Maison Blanche is a terrific place to stay, and Annick is the consummate host. Price per night was 90€ (cash only) and included Annick’s delicious breakfast. I can’t think of a better or more relaxing place to stay.

Tomorrow, however, the road warriors would hit the pavement again as we would head toward the western Loire. We would have time to visit a chateau, a castle and an abbey on the way to a city where I wish we could have spent more time. Who knew?

Next: Day Twelve – Boar Wars, A Chateau That Floats, Traveling In Joan Of Arc’s Footsteps (Without The Fire), Eleanor Really, Don’t Look Back In Angers, Get Me To The Church On Time and A Ferme Decision For Dinner

Great stuff, as usual, but surprised you didn't mention the great defenestration that Catherine de Medici arranged at the château at Amboise - I mean holding a dinner party for the Huguenots and spearing them and forking them over the walls into the river is pretty bold history (and this from the person who introduced forks to France!)

Day Twelve – Boar Wars, A Chateau That Floats, Traveling In Joan Of Arc’s Footsteps (Without The Fire), Eleanor Really, Don’t Look Back In Angers, Get Me To The Church On Time and A Ferme Decision For Dinner

It was time for one last Gorge-athon for breakfast at Manoir de la Maison Blanche, and after saying goodbye to Annick, the horses, cats and dogs we were on our way to Angers, with a few stops scheduled along the way. Annick had been nice enough to purchase a “brioche for the road” for us. She must have sensed we needed to eat every half hour or so.

We thought that Château de Azay-le-Rideau would be our first adventure of the day, but it would actually turn out to be our second. Just a few kilometers from the chateau, as I rolled on down the highway, an unexpected visitor ran across our path. “Holy crap, it’s a boar,” Tracy said.

When I tried to explain to her that I knew this drive wasn’t the most scenic, she said, “Not a bore, you idiot, there was a wild boar running alongside the road.” Quickly looking in my rear view window, I saw the boar darting in and out of traffic like a New York City native. It was huge, and amazingly it did not get hit (at least while we were in the vicinity). I don’t think I’d like to meet one them face-to-face.

Arriving at Azay-le-Rideau in a slight drizzle, we walked around the entire chateau before entering. One of the Loire’s earliest chateaux, Azay-le-Rideau was built on an island on the Indre River. Looking at it, Azay just seems to float on the water.

After purchasing our tickets and audio guide, we entered via the Grand Staircase and went up to the Great Attic (they must have liked big things, I thought). The entire chateau had some very nice furnishings, beautiful tapestries, nice views out to the water, and it took about an hour to visit.

Our next stop was Chinon where we would visit Joan of Arc’s old stomping ground, Château de Chinon. This is where she stopped to chat with the future King Charles VII before she headed off to Orléans so Ingrid Bergman could play her in the movies centuries later. We bought a discounted ticket here when we showed that we had also visited Azay-le-Rideau earlier, so if you visit both, keep your ticket.

Once again we were happy with our audio guides (included with the price of our ticket), and we walked the grounds that had some great views out to the Vienne River. Château de Chinon has undergone a gigantic restoration since our last visit more than a decade ago, and in a few of the rooms there were videos projected in an unconventional manner, showing the history of the place including Joan’s visit.

There were towers to climb and dungeons to explore, which, of course, made us all very hungry. As the town of Chinon had been packed, we parked above the castle. We took the Panoramic Elevator down to the cute town of Chinon for lunch.

The couples split up for lunch, so Tracy and I elected to sit down at Bistrot de la Place located on the main square. Although the service was incredibly slow (even for France), Tracy enjoyed the zucchini soup, bruschetta, while I had a delicious Ravioli aux fromage. Meanwhile, Kim and Mary picked up lunch at a Farmers Market and walked around Chinon.

After taking the elevator back up top, we asked the very nice ticket person at the chateau for directions to our next stop (Madame Bleu and Lady Garmin seemed to be on strike today and were of little help).

Armed with those directions, it was not a long drive to Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud. I’m glad I listened to all of you on the board who said to definitely stop here, because this was one of the highlights of the trip. If you go, you should also purchase the audio guide because it is invaluable in telling the history of this place.

We entered the huge, high-vaulted abbey church, which is quite a sight. Soon we came upon four royal effigy tombs that date all the way back to the 12th and 13th centuries. The tops of these tombs are painted with the effigy of the people who were once inside, including Elenore of Aquitaine, her husband, Henry II Plantagenet and their son King Richard I The Lionheart. Their remains were thought to have been removed during the French Revolution. We spent about 90 minutes touring the abbey, and the stories surrounding it were very interesting.

It was now time for us to make the drive to our hotel for the night located in the city of Angers, a place I knew virtually nothing about except for the fact that it was on the way to Mont Saint-Michel, where we would go the following morning.

By the time we hit Angers, there was a driving rainstorm and traffic that rivaled some of the worst we have encountered in France. It didn’t help that the one-way streets seemed to be conspiring against us as we tried to find our hotel.

Needless to say, with all this traffic, I needed some Angers Management. One guy honked at me, but I remembered my psychologist telling me not “to look back in Angers,” or something like that, so I stayed focused on the task at hand: getting us to the hotel without killing anyone.

All that said, driving around the city was kind of cool. It almost seemed like we were in the heart of mini-Paris minus the Tour Eiffel. Even though it was raining, there were lots of people walking, and they all were pretty stylish, too. The shabby four would soon lower that common denominator.

We parked in a secure underground garage (locked at night) and, after I survived some sort of weird dizzy spell exiting the car, we schlepped our suitcases through the rain to our hotel, the Hotel Le Continental, 14 Rue Louis de Romain.

Rooms at this hotel are small (the bathroom was extra small with showers only a super model could love), but once again it was clean, although I think a previous occupant or two had not adhered to the no smoking policy. Of course, I always find smokers to be sooo considerate of others.

Sadly, we got to the city too late to see Château d'Angers, but we did want to explore the city a little bit since it had piqued everyone’s interest while driving to the hotel. So after we all freshened up and contorted like a wet pretzel to fit in the miniscule shower, we were off on foot, umbrellas at the ready, although the rain was letting up a bit.

Angers was full of young people (well, I guess most people are “young people” to us now), and there was plenty of shopping going on. We scurried to La Cathédrale Saint-Maurice, which was built in the 12th and 13th centuries. The stained glass windows were beautiful, and we spent a fair amount of time admiring its interior.

Then, suddenly, we had a terrible thought. It was almost two weeks into our trip and we hadn’t hit an Irish pub, a must for a Tom, Tracy, Kim and Mary trip. Fortunately, there was one nearby, and on our way to it we spied a restaurant our hotel had recommended. We decided we would return after cocktails (I mean it was almost 7 p.m. for God’s sake). I think the place was called Le Dent, which I hoped would not be foreshadowing for our rental car.

In any event, after a Guiness, we went back to the hotel, got into some nicer clothes so we wouldn’t embarrass the Angerians (yeah, I know) and we headed out to our restaurant, and what a restaurant it turned out to be!

Sometimes it was hard for the four of us to make a firm decision for dinner, but Le Ferme (2 Place Freppel) had a great look from the outside, so this one was a no-brainer. When we arrived about 8 p.m., very few tables in the two rooms were occupied. When we left the place was packed.

Outside of our foursome, we heard no English spoken at La Ferme, so those of you who need an authentic “French experience” fix should like this place. Of course, even though we tried to introduce ourselves with our exceptional French accents, we were offered the English menu. I think they saw my little frown when they “discovered” our true nationality, so they offered me the French menu.

We were served an amuse-bouche (I think they did that because we bought a round of cocktails…yes shocking, I know).

Dinner was exquisite and there were even a couple of “wow” dishes. Kim and Mary started with a salmon ravioli in lobster broth. Kim then ordered a lamb shank and Mary had the first “wow” dish, a whitefish with butter sauce and ratatouille on mashed potatoes.

I started with a “wow” appetizer, pan-fried scallops in a whiskey cream sauce with risotto. I could go back right now. I also ordered the delicious lamb shank with pommes frites. Tracy had a very good duck with roasted potatoes. For once, even I was too full to order dessert, plus I was afraid my pants would split.

Cocktails, appetizers, main courses and a bottle of wine came to 120€ for the four of us. It was a great way to end an eventful (and long) day.

The cathedral was lit up as we walked past it on the way back to the hotel, and I was kind of kicking myself for not researching Angers more before we came. I hope we can return here one day, as I really liked the entire vibe of the city.

I believe I was asleep before Tracy could say, “What time do we need to get up tomorrow?” That was fortunate for me, because my phone was programmed to wake us up very early. We needed to get to Mont St-Michel before the hordes of tourists descended upon the place.

Next: Day Thirteen - The Road Less Traveled, Stairway To Heaven, Sermon On The Mont, Addressing An Oversight, How Much Duck Could A Wood Duck Chuck, Another Oasis In A City and You Mean We Have To Walk This Far Again For Dinner

A great new part of your post, Tom, but I'd like to go back to the Defenistration, you talked about earlier. You know, when the angry citizens throw the ineffective politicians out of high windows? Anyway, how about applying that to our own Congress?

Angers-funny story. Trying to reserve a rental car through Avis with our pick-up being in Angers.
After spelling it, explaining the English pronunciation if it was indeed English, and then saying Angers the way it is meant to be said, and then the same all over again, the agent said to me in a deep southern accent: Are you tryin' a speak French tuh me?
And hung up!

There is no one who can write a trip report like do! A play-by-play of someone else's trip can be dreadfully dull, but you make it so entertaining.

Now for your expertise...We will be in Sarlat in June and plan to stay at Villa des Consuls. We are trying to decide between the Montesquieu and Montaigne apartments. The Montiagne has a big terrace overlooking the town, whereas your apartment looks like it has a smaller terrace overlooking an interior courtyard. Do you think the town facing terrace would make the apartment noisy? Does Sarlat even have noise in the evening?

Digby, Thanks for the nice comments. I had actually wanted the apartment you are talking about, but they recommended the Montesquieu for four people. How many people are going? Our apartment was great with the terrace...and quiet. We never did see the Montaigne apartment (I had wanted to, but forgot...wine has that effect on me).

We were in Sarlat in late Sept/early October, and except for the Zorba The Greek music on one Saturday night, the town was pretty quiet. My guess is it might be noisier in June, but hopefully someone who has been there at that time can answer better. I would think there would be noise early on Saturday and Wednesday when they are getting the market day together, but that is only a guess on my part. You will love Sarlat (and Villa des Consuls) and the area around it. Have a great time.

Thanks for your replies, Tom and StCirq. Unfortunately, we will not be there for the Saturday market, and we are early risers, so the Wednesday market should not be a problem. I was more worried about late night revelry.

Tom--I am guessing they suggested the Montesquieu for you, because it has 2 queens as opposed to a queen and a double in the Montaigne. We will have 4 people also, but the bed size is not as important to us. Given that our two sons are over 6 feet, they won't share any size bed together. One will be on the sofa bed.

Day Thirteen - The Road Less Traveled, Stairway To Heaven, Sermon On The Mont, Addressing An Oversight, How Much Duck Could A Wood Duck Chuck, Another Oasis In A City and You Mean We Have To Walk This Far Again For Dinner

My iPhone awoke us promptly at 6:45 a.m., blaring out the Old Car Horn sound (yes, I am a joy to travel with), and a little before 8 a.m. the four of us trudged through the lobby of the Hotel Continental. Although we didn’t eat there, the smell of the still baking croissants was quite enticing.

Driving out of Angers on Sunday morning, the vibrant city of the night before was gone, and it was now more like a ghost town. It was either because it was early Sunday morning or that the other drivers were warned that we would be careening our Audi through town.

Madame Bleu must not have received enough sleep, because before you could “Where the Hell are we,” she had us turning into the Château d'Angers, which, of course, was closed.

A few illegal U-turn later, we made it out of town, but Madame Bleu was all messed up. I had printed out a map from Angers to Mont Saint Michel, but like a few of my travel maps hat could have been on immense help, it was sitting on my dining room table at home. I thought about calling the cats, but their map skills are somewhat limited.

I did remember we should follow the sign for Rennes, but Madame Bleu kept sending us off on tiny roads leading to even tinier roads. I should have just followed my gut (which looking at its largeness was pretty easy to follow), but instead I stupidly listened to our GPS tease. Finally, we told Madame Bleu to “fermez votre bouche,” and Kim started guiding us toward our destination of Mont Saint-Michel.

As we got close, you could see the old Mont in the distance, and as all the books report, it was quite a sight. We parked in the new parking lot (8.50€), and then we had a decision to make. We could walk (about 40 minutes) or take a shuttle. We hopped on the free shuttle (ten minute walk from the parking lot, with one leaving about every five minutes)

A few minutes later, we were looking up at the amazing Mont Saint-Michel. Although it wasn’t used in the movie, it sure reminded me of the end of Monty Python and The Holy Grail, but I decided not to taunt anyone, even for a second time.

Instead of salt water, MSM is surrounded by silt water, which certainly takes away from some of the beauty, but MSM is still something to behold in person. Fortunately, the causeway allows tourists to avoid quicksand on the way to it.

I was here to pay homage to my guardian angel St. Michel (aka Michael), who paid me a few visits in the hospital when I was incarcerated two years before. I wanted to thank him for not holding it against me that I was a Presbyterian and for letting me live along enough to see San Diego State finally make a bowl game.

It was now time to climb the 25,000 steps (just a guess on my part) to the top and see the abbey of Saint Michel. Looking at the daunting climb, I nearly said, “Boy, we could use a good Sherpa for this climb.” Fortunately I caught Tracy out of the corner of my eye and thought better of it.

Since the abbey was the first and most important place to see, we followed Fodorite “favorite” Rick Steves’ tip to bypass the maddening crowds. We climbed up the first set of stairs on the right after the drawbridge and followed the ramparts up, up and up some more. For a few minutes, I thought I might have to call on Michael again for a little help.

We passed by restaurants and hotels on the way to the abbey and finally (and mercifully) we reached the abbey where we paid the 9€ (3€ extra for audio guide).

The audio guide is a must (in my opinion) to appreciate the abbey. We got inside just as the priest was finishing his speech to the congregation. “Hey, we get to hear the Sermon On The Mont,” I said to no one in particular. I think Michael would have liked that one.

Afterward, we made our way down in the opposite direction and hit the most touristic part of MSM with a restaurant seemingly every five feet. We stopped for a quick bite to eat, and Kim had the famous Mont Saint-Michel Omelette that he said really shouldn’t be famous. I think I downed about 300 pommes frites. Without lunch, the climb up, touring the abbey and walking back down took about 90 minutes.

Our destination on this afternoon was Bayeux, but first we stopped at a nearby cemetery for Germans killed in World War II. The Cimetière Militaire Allemand contains the remains of 11,888 German soldiers. We walked through the cemetery, and there is a fantastic view out to Mont Saint-Michel.

Now it was on to the easy drive to Bayeux, where we would spend the following three nights. Enough gas: check! Madame Bleu back working: check! Hotel name: check! Address of hotel: Time to call the cats! Yes, my info was on the dining room table, probably sitting underneath a huge hairball.

We approached Bayeux and were in search of the Hotel Chateau de Bellefontaine. I knew it couldn’t be in the center of town, because like our b&b in Amboise, this had more of a park-like setting. Passing by the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux, we drove a little further and thankfully the TI was still open.

Similar to Manoir de la Maison Blanche in Amboise, just a few blocks out of the hustle and bustle of Bayeux was the oasis that was Hotel Chateau de Bellefontaine. Driving down the gravel driveway, we looked out on a beautiful setting complete with a small pond that had swans and ducks frolicking (or whatever swans and ducks do in their spare time).

Walking over the small bridge to the hotel, we saw a flock of beautiful wood ducks. I could only think they had it so much better than their cousins back in the Dordogne.

Our hostess was most cordial, our rooms were spacious and this was another terrific spot to plop our bodies down for a few nights. As usual, we toasted our good fortune with a bottle of wine before we headed off to town for dinner, and just like Amboise, we would get our exercise to and from our meals for three days. It was about a 25-minute walk to the center of Bayeux.

Being a Sunday night, the night where no one in France eats out, we walked down the main drag until we saw an inviting restaurant (aka one that is open), La Table du Terroir. This is another restaurant that gets crappy Trip Advisor reviews, but I think Trip Advisor is wrong more than it’s correct, and tonight reaffirmed my view.

The service was very, very professional and nice, and the food was quite good. We all started with a Kir Normand (Cassis and Calvados). Kim and Tracy each had vegetable soup and pork, while Mary had a salad with gizzards (no wood ducks fortunately) and salmon. I started with escargots that I ate at a snail’s pace, which, of course made me sluggish (it just wouldn’t be a France trip report without that oldie). I then dined on a nice beef dish. We washed all this down with a 14.50€ carafe of house wine. The bill came to, what else, 120€.

On the way back to the hotel, Mary suggested a route that seemed very Madame “Bleuish” to us, but we let her lead the way (I blamed the Calvados). Yes, we had gone in a direction that took us completely out of the way, but my bloated body size certainly needed the extra exercise.

Back at the hotel, the wood ducks were illuminated in the moonlight in our tiny pond, and we attempted to shoot some photos without falling into the water (a literal swan dive). Once again, I blamed the Calvados.

It rained for much of the night, and the sound of the drops against the window was quite relaxing. We could even sleep in a little bit the next morning on a day that we would see a beautiful cathedral, my favorite tapestry, an incredible port and a 360-degree, birds-eye view of what it was like to be in France during World War II.

Next: Day Fourteen – I’m From The United States…of Canada, An Astounding Cathedral, My Favorite Tapestry Minus Carole King, What A Way To Go, Any Port In A Storm Of War, A Senior Moment, D-Day 360, Honoring The British and Perhaps The Best French Onion Soup…Ever

To Schnauzer, who wondered some time ago about windows at the Villa des Consuls in Sarlat: This is one of my favorite hotels in all of France, and I have stayed there perhaps 10 times. I commend it highly.

Schnauzer, if you are a couple seeking lighter rooms, get one of the larger rooms (Mirabeau, Medicis or Richelieu) overlooking the rue de la République, and you will be in heaven. La Boëtie and Montaigne also are in this République category and are nice, bright and roomy (Montaigne is entered via a separate entrance when compared with the other rooms).

The smaller rooms (Colbert, Ronsard and Tallyrand) are the darker ones, especially Tallyrand, which you should avoid as it does indeed have two small windows very high up. Colbert and Ronsard, which I find quite acceptable, both have windows overlooking a courtyard (but not the street).

Montesquieu, Du Bellay and Fénelon have varying degrees of window access but are less desirable, light-wise, than the doubles mentioned above.

Finally, avoid the annex room, Remparts, as it is window-challenged.

Do contact David after reviewing the photos on his excellent website. If you do so well in advance you can probably get the room you want. Believe me, it will be worth it.

If you need more info about Villa des Consuls from a guest's perspective, email me at gnevin at gmail.com. No, I have no financial or other interest in Villa des Consuls –I just love the place and the management.

FYI, since I forgot the address at home and on my last post, the address for Hotel Chateau de Bellefontaine is 49 rue Bellefontaine.

Speaking of my disdain for Trip Advisor reviews, I was reading about this establishment this morning, and although it gets mostly positive reviews, it did get some low marks for its customer service.

As you will see in my next couple of posts (if I ever write them), that our experience was the exact opposite of the service the four of us received. I believe that most people who bitch about lack of service bring it on themselves by having a less than positive attitude and who think they're staying at the Ritz Carlton. Someone else on TA complained that the property was difficult to find. Well, once you have the address (yes, it does come in handy), you'd have to have the IQ of a gnat not to find it. I think a lot of people complain just too complain, which is why I take TA reviews with a grain of salt.

I absolutely never believe anything about TA reviews unless there about at least 40 of them to read so that I can make my own opinion about the place. In NYC, I stayed in a (cheap) hotel that had absolutely horrible reviews, but the complaints were things like "not enough light in the hallways" and "the elevators were weird colors." I absolutely loved the place.

I'm glad you liked the Château de la Bellefontaine. I remember it as one of the nicest places we ever stayed. The setting was absolutely magical, and our room was enormous! Sitting out front in the evening looking over the rose garden and having an apéro was totally delightful.

SC, it was a post by you that turned me on to Château de la Bellefontaine. The weather wasn't vey conducive to spending a lot of time outdoors there, although the ducks and swans got to know us very well. A real gem. Thanks.

and Kerouac, I'm with you on TA. Most of the things that people find "terrible" are usually minor, in my opinion, or they just make stuff up. One person on TA was upset that there was no menu at Château de la Bellefontaine, and since the servers only spoke French they couldn't order. That seemed a little odd, so I just called our traveling partners. Kim and Mary ate there the last night, and amazingly they did they get a menu. By the way, there was an English menu that I read every time I was in the elevator.

Day Fourteen – I’m From The United States…of Canada, An Astounding Cathedral, My Favorite Tapestry Minus Carole King, What A Way To Go, Any Port In A Storm Of War, A Senior Moment, D-Day 360, Honoring The British and Perhaps The Best French Onion Soup…Ever

It was raining pretty hard when we woke up on Monday morning, but by the time the four of us had dressed and piled into the car, there was just a slight drizzle. We drove into Bayeux, parked and walked a short distance to get some croissants, sweets and café.

Plopping down at our table, we were seated next to a couple from England and within minutes we were chatting with them. The woman asked where we were from, and before you could say, “geographically impaired,” Mary started to say “United States,” but suddenly changed her answer and our nationalities at the same time. She replied, “Canada.”

The rest of us just went, “Eh?” It was obvious that early morning caffeine deprivation had inflicted our traveling partner, who quickly realized that California was still not yet part of our neighbors to the north.

Bidding our confused British friends, “Tally-ho,” we made our first official stop of the day at the gorgeous Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux. This was the actual “home” of the famed Bayeux Tapestry from the 11th through the 18th century. It was consecrated in 1077 and has a beautiful nave and a couple of huge pipe organs.

After putting in a couple of more euros in the parking meter, we walked over to the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux to see the Bayeux Tapestry that Tracy and I had viewed in the late 90s. It was, and I’m happy to say still is, one of my favorite things I’ve seen on all our European trips, and it depicts the Norman Conquest by William The Conqueror, the Battle of Hastings and poor, old Harold II.

First there was a 16-minute movie on what we were about to see, and afterward we entered the darkened room where the tapestry is kept. Tracy and I both thought that the floor moved around the tapestry the last time we were there, but this time you set the audio guide on start and keep following along by foot.

The audio guide goes pretty fast (probably to keep the crowds moving along during the heavy tourist season), but you can pause to get a better look at the scenes being depicted. As you get to the end, you see Harold II with that famed arrow protruding from his eye, although historians have some dispute as whether it was him or not. In any case, not a fun way to go whomever the victim happened to be.

Tracy and Mary liked it so much (the tapestry, not necessarily the arrow in the eye) that as Kim and I exited, they walked back and went through one more time. Afterward, Kim took the obligatory stupid picture of me standing next to a knight on a horse holding my eye like I had been mortally wounded. Maturity is not our strong point.

Walking into town, we all grabbed a sandwich, and then hopped in the car to visit a famous World II site. Arromanches is about a half hour drive from Bayeux, and it is the spot where the British erected an artificial harbor known as Port Winston (named after Churchill, not the cigarette).

Code-named “Mulberry,” this was one of two artificial harbors erected a few days after the June 6 invasion (the American one at Omaha Beach was destroyed less than two weeks later, but remnants of this one can still be seen today). More than two million soldiers landed here over the next ten months.

We walked down on the beach to take some photos so that we could get near some of the pieces of the harbor that still remains. Just as we got down there, a beautiful rainbow appeared over the water. Pretty cool, indeed!

We bypassed the museum at Arromanches, electing instead to walk up to the Arromanches 360 Circular Theater, and when I say up, it was up. A steep 20-minute climb and we arrived out of breath at the theater. “It won’t be lung now,” I said to Tracy. I was pretty excited to get .50€ deducted from the 4.30€ ticket because I was 60 (it was my first ever senior discount anywhere).

We waited for about 15 minutes and then all entered the circular theater that shows a film entitled “The Price Of Freedom.” We stood near the center of the room, and the announcer said that it would enhance the experience to walk around a bit during the film, looking at various screens depicting the action.

At times you were on the boats with the soldiers arriving at Omaha Beach reliving some of the horror, or at Pointe du Hoc or in a village as liberating soldiers walked through. It was a mesmerizing film and something I highly recommend people see when they visit the region.

As we drove back to Bayeux, we remembered driving past a British cemetery as we momentarily floundered about in the quest to find our hotel. On the Ring Road (I believe it was the southern part) of Bayeux is the British War Cemetery. Nearly 4,000 British soldiers (along with a handful of soldiers from other countries) are buried here. Interestingly, there are also nearly 500 German soldiers buried here.

I walked across the street to the Bayeux Memorial that faces the cemetery. There is an inscription (in Latin) that reads (I had to look this up because if I’m terrible at French, Latin is completely out of the question), “We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land.” It’s hard to escape old Bill here in Bayeux.

Amazingly, we still got back to the Château de Bellefontaine in time to get a little nap. Soon, however, it was time to lace up our walking shoes for the 25-minute walk in to Bayeux.

Our very nice hostess at the chateau had booked us reservations at Le Petite Normand, 35 rue Larcher. It’s located just across from the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux, and the lighting was such that I ran out to take a few pictures.

Le Petite Normand was a winner from the very start. I had the best French Onion Soup I have ever tasted, a “Wow” dish to be sure. I followed that with a tasty beef with three-peppercorn sauce and a panna cotta that threatened to put me on a Weight Watchers Watch list.

Tracy opted for the salad with carrots and a pork dish with mustard sauce and a pear crepe. Kim also had a pork dish with Camembert and apples, while Mary had the poulet with apples and raisins. This was a fantastic meal and only cost 90€, which included a little vin rouge and a Kir Normand for yours truly.

We took the direct route back to the hotel, and the wood ducks were waiting for us, posing like wood ducks do. As we fell into bed, we were excited about the next day’s agenda. I wouldn’t have to worry about our group not wanting to wake up early tomorrow, because our day was going to begin with a four-hour tour of D-Day sights. We would also dine at the best restaurant we visited in our nearly three weeks in France.

Next: Day Fifteen – Walking In The Footsteps Of History, Checking Out the city of Bayeux and An Inventive and Incroyable Dinner

"It takes FOREVER to write trip reports, doesn't it?" SC, That's for sure. This one is tough since work is so busy. Thankfully, there are only five days left to write about.

And willowjane: Yes, Tracy is most definitely a Saint.

annhig, Bayeux is a terrific little town combining D-Day sites with the Bayeux Tapestry and The Cathedrale along with some pretty terrific restaurants...especially the one in the next installment...Coming soon to a Fodors Board near you.

Really enjoying your report - a fun mix of entertainment and information. Believe me, it is truly worth the wait between installments. My wife, granddaughter and I had a great time during our adventures in Paris, Normandy & the Loire Valley last year and your tales bring a lot of it back. Are there any pictures of this saga in our future?

annhig, Bayeux is a terrific little town combining D-Day sites with the Bayeux Tapestry and The Cathedrale along with some pretty terrific restaurants...especially the one in the next installment...Coming soon to a Fodors Board near you.>>

yes, Tom, i know all that...it's not exactly that far away after all, but somehow it's fallen between the two stools of crossing over to Brittany and travelling south, and using the chunnel and going east.

Day Fifteen – Walking In The Footsteps Of History, Germ Warfare, Checking Out the City of Bayeux Plus An Inventive and Incroyable Dinner

Up early, the four of us walked down to the Place de Quebec (maybe that’s why Mary thought we were Canadians yesterday), where, at a little before 8:30 a.m. we were to be met by our guide from Overlord Tours who would us take the four of us (and three others) on a half day tour of D-Day sites.

We first stopped at the nearby L'hôtel Reine Mathilde where we had four awakening café au laits. At about 8:20 our van showed up, and the seven of us along with our guide got into the van for the beginning of the tour (55€…cash only). We had booked the tour a few months ago to assure our early time.

Fortunately, we were not seated next to our guide, because as a couple from Seattle was about to find out, she had a terrible cough (she even made the people on my influenza-laden flight over to France seem healthy).

In any event, our first stop was at the Batteries of Longues-sur-Mer, which housed artillery used by the Germans. According to our guide, the Germans fired 100s of artillery shells into the area of oncoming ships, but they all missed their mark. We then walked around the area looking at the bunkers and the remaining weapons.

Back at the van, the guide, who now had hacked up the equivalent of about four lungs in one hour, was amazingly puffing away on a cigarette. Yes, there is no cure for stupid.

In any event, as our guide drove to our next location, through her coughing spells, she told her vanmates not to worry. “It’s only an infection that is not contagious.” Meanwhile, the couple from Seattle was looking through their records to see when they received their last flu shot.

Our next stop was famed Omaha Beach, and it was quite remarkable to be standing on such a historic piece of earth. In between her spastic coughs, our guide did provide us with interesting information.

It was especially interesting, personal and moving for Mary, whose dad was part of the D-Day invasion. He saved one of his comrades from drowning by cutting his too-heavy pack, and years later, after Mary’s dad had passed away, the person he saved arrived at Mary’s door to tell her the story of her dad’s heroism. She had never known about it.

We then drove past some other historical sites, but we didn’t get too much information from our guide. She spent a lot of time on her cell phone, because it seemed her dog might be dying this day, too. Eisenhower didn’t have this many problems.

Soon, we arrived at The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach (Cimitére Americain). Tracy and I had visited here in 1998, and it was quite an emotional experience, especially when they played Taps late in the day. More than 9,000 soldiers and sailors are buried here, and the group was allowed to tour the cemetery on our own for about 45 minutes.

We meandered throughout the crosses and Stars of David, and came upon Teddy Roosevelt Jr.’s tombstone, which showed he was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. Teddy survived the invasion, but died a little more than a month later from a heart attack. He is buried next to his brother, Quentin, who was killed in World War I.

There was one more important stop on the tour, and soon we were at Pointe du Hoc. This is where the U.S. Army Rangers scaled great heights to combat the Germans. The landscape around Pointe du Doc is basically littered with bomb craters. We had about 30 minutes to walk around the area, and it’s pretty remarkable to think about what went on here nearly 70 years ago.

If you want a really good read, pick up David Brinkley’s book, “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion”, which intertwines the story of the valiant Army Rangers with the speech Ronald Reagan gave on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. It was literally I book I couldn’t put down, because I read it in one sitting.

Soon, however, history gave way to trying to find my bottle of Purell Hand Sanitizer as our guide’s coughing hit a new crescendo. The entire tour takes four hours.

I thought the tour was informative and well worth the price, but I do think they could do a better job. There was lots of dead time in the van where perhaps a sound system explaining more details could come in handy. Plus, it would have drowned out her coughing.

Before leaving, we saw our new friends from Seattle (who were trying to contact the nearest Hazmat Unit), and bade them farewell (or was it really farewell). Back in Bayeux, the four of us sat down for a relaxed lunch at a restaurant on the town’s main street. We then wandered the streets of Bayeux on a bustling Tuesday afternoon, before walking back to the hotel for a little nap.

For dinner, Kim and Mary decided to stay at the hotel and dine there (they enjoyed their meal, especially the chicken), while Tracy and I made one last walk into town for our dinner. Our hotel had made reservations at a restaurant that had received a good deal of hype on the Fodors Board and elsewhere in the Foodie world. Not really being a foodie, but one who enjoys a good meal (obviously), I was skeptical it would live up to the hype (doubting Thomas, I guess).

Le P’tit Resto, 2 Rue de Bienvenu, lived up to all the advance press and more. We were seated in the front section of the restaurant near the bar (the trend continues), and we only saw a few more tables seated in this tiny restaurant on a drizzly Tuesday night (we sat between a couple from Cape Cod and a couple from Canada…not Mary).

Tracy and I started with a Kir Cassis, and after that we didn’t have a kir in the world. This is a restaurant for more adventuresome diners, because the menu changes often and is rather limited.

Although limited, our choices were spectacular. We started with the amuse-bouche of warm figs with jambon.

Next up was the appetizer. Tracy had crème fraîche and caviar on soft bread. I sneaked a bite, and it was the first time I ever tasted anything with caviar (not that I dine on caviar often) that I enjoyed. So much for the doubting Thomas. “This is going to be fun, “ I said to Tracy.

I started with an appetizer of foie gras (I didn’t tell the ducks when I got back to the hotel) with cinnamon and apple slices. It was fantastic.

For the main course, I had an incredible pork tenderloin on a bed of risotto with a shot of caramel sauce on the side for 17€. It sounds weird, but the caramel sauce was the perfect complement to the meal.

Tracy went for the smoked salmon in a puff pastry on a bed of mashed peas with a shot of warm gazpacho. It, too, was magnificent.

This was no rime to stop even thought we were rather full, so on to dessert we traveled. Tracy’s Baba-au-Rhum was like no Baba-au-Rhum we’d ever seen (well, we had never seen one in person, but had looked at pictures). I had one little bite, but Tracy liked it so much she wouldn’t share, a unique experience from my usual caring spouse.

The Baba-au-rhum was reconstituted with framboise and a shot of liquor that wasn’t easily recognizable (you’ll have to see the photo when I put it up, because it’s hard to describe), although through our sheer powers of deduction we figured it must have been some sort of rum.

Not to be outdone in the dessert department, I had a scrumptious chocolate mousse in a chocolate shell on a bed of pistachio cream. Our bottle of Saumur vin rouge lasted almost throughout the entire meal.

The total bill came to 101€, and it was totally worth the price. It was one of the best meals we’ve had anywhere.

Somehow we were able to amble back to the hotel, said one last farewell to the wood ducks, and soon we were packing for the following day’s journey.

We only had one more stop to make before returning to Gay Paree. We were going to stay in a town, that in retrospect, we gave short shrift to back in 1998, although we had enjoyed our stay there on that trip, as well. It would be the perfect stop to refresh our engines before the final few days in Paris, and even though both rooms at our hotel would present some minor “challenges,” it was a cool, little spot in a very charming town.

Next: Day Sixteen - Harboring Four Americans, Is That A Boat Or A Church, Killer Caramel Crepes, Dancing In The Street, Death Stairs 2012, What’s This Tree Doing In My Shower, Not Dine But Dash and The Perfect Way To Spend An Evening

Tom, I've just begun your report . . . I've only read through Day 3, but am experiencing the usual joy in your journey. Your last Paris trip introduced us to Miracle Cream — now I'm hoping to learn more about Wound Glue. I'm in for the duration . . .

Thanks for all the detailed info Geonev. I have been without electricity for a week!! Don't ask.... so haven't been able to check in too often. (running a cable from neighbour!!) Now that I have to upgrade all the electricity I am not sure about my holiday.... need to reassess. I will see what the insurance will pay for and what I am up for.

We did the Overlord tour a few years ago and had a really great guide. It was one of the highlights of our 2 weeks in France. Our guide took us through some interesting points at the American Cemetary and one of them was the grave of Teddy roosevelt Jr. and told us his story. Sounds like you got a little less than you should have. Bayeux was a cute little town and the Bayeux Tapestry was amazing. We read your Rome trip report from a few year back. We leave March 1st for Rome, Sicily and Paris. We went to Rome the first time in 2010 and want to thank you for introducing us to Prosecco. Enjoying reading your trip report. They are always so much fun!

Split in half 20 green walnuts picked on June 24 and put them in a jar with 1.5 litres of alcohol (vodka will do, and if using Everclear more watering down than indicated will be necessary). Cork tightly.

Leave this mixture to infuse for 6 weeks in a cool place, taking care to shake the jar from time to time.

Strain through a cloth. Mix in a syrup made from 1 pound of sugar and 1 cup of water. Add a little cinnamon and a pinch of coriander.

Leave to infuse for another month. Strain and bottle. (from the Larousse Gastronomique)

An alternative if eau de noix cannot be found, it to drink nocino which is more readily available in the States.

Day Sixteen - Harboring Four Americans, Is That A Boat Or A Church, Killer Caramel Crepes, Dancing In The Street, Death Stairs 2012, What’s This Tree Doing In My Shower, Not Dine But Dash and The Perfect Way To Spend An Evening

On an overcast Wednesday morning, the four of us were off to our next locale, which would just be a short one-night stand (ah, the college days..oops, excuse me) in the cute town of Honfleur, where Tracy and I had also had a one-night stand (of a different sort) in 1998.

It only took us a little more than an hour to reach Honfleur, although after we got there we thought it might take another hour to find our b&b, La cour sainte Catherine, 74 rue du puits. In a stroke of luck after circumventing the city and some construction that had Madame Bleu more screwed up than usual, not only did we find a parking place, but we found one right in front of the b&b.

We were very early, and they told us our rooms would be ready about three that afternoon, but they took our luggage and it was off to explore Honfleur. As I said, Tracy and I visited in the late 90s. We had stayed out of town, so we only really saw the harbor, a place that made me want to paint a Monet-like painting, if only I could paint. We were to find out on this trip that Honfleur was a lot more than just a pretty harbor.

Our first stop on this morning was Saint-Catherine’s Church, and when we entered the 15th century church it looked similar to an upside-down ship’s hull. It was like the Poseidon Adventure without Gene Hackman circa the 1400s. We walked outside where there was a mini-farmer’s market going on, and we walked around town for a bit, checking out some over-priced art until lunch-time.

I took a photo of Kim and Mary with two small Christmas-type trees on either side that they said they would use as their Christmas card (by the way Mary, we haven’t received it yet!).

Wandering over to the harbor, we sat outside at la Chaloupe (I believe), which we chose by a very simple method…the restaurant had outdoor heaters (it was cold). Lunch was good. For dessert (none of my pants were fitting anyway), I had a wonderful caramel crepe. Oh yeah, wine was involved, too, albeit just a small carafe.

After a long lunch, it was almost time to check in, so back to the La cour sainte Catherine we walked. Honfleur is an incredibly picturesque city, so much so it would be perfect for a wedding. I know that because on the walk back to the b&b, a couple who looked like they were taking some engagement photos were literally dancing in the street. Thankfully I was walking by them and not driving or it could have had dire consequences for their nuptials.

Back at the b&b, we were shown to our two rooms. Each was spacious and clean, and each provided a challenge, which were quite different from one another.

When we walked down the stairs from the first room we saw, a second story room, when we opened the door to the outside on the way back down, one misstep and we would have face-planted into the street. With the copious amounts of wine we drink, Kim and Mary decided that this room would be safer for them to occupy. “We don’t want to lose you this late in the trip,” Kim said. I think he meant it.

Our room didn’t present a challenge until the following morning. Getting in the tiny shower, I realized there was a piece of timber in the center of the ceiling of the shower that caused me to contort so that the knot in the wood didn’t cause a knot in my head. Other than those little quirks, we liked the place that included a beautiful courtyard and a charming breakfast room (included in the price of the room).

Contemplating going down the street to the restaurant recommended by our lovely hostess, we decided to head on down to the harbor again for dinner. The night had cleared up, so off to the harbor we walked.

We ducked inside one restaurant and after sitting down we checked out the menu, which looked ok, but the entire atmosphere of the restaurant seemed to be a downer. This was an eerie reminder of our second night in Paris, so the four of us hightailed it out of the restaurant.

Walking around for a bit, we settled down at a table at L’Hippocampe, complete with a gorgeous view of the harbor. As the moon rose in the sky, we toasted (damn, we toast a lot) our incredible fortune to have gone on this journey. On this night anyway, the view was more important than the food, which happened to be surprisingly good.

Mary dined on some oysters and skate, Kim had a fish soup, while I had a Tartine Normandy and Tracy dined on Sea Bream (which is either a fish or the submarine in Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea) with red pepper cream sauce. I also had a fantastic chocolate tart with orange zest for dessert. Harkening back to the Dordogne, I was now beginning to resemble Domme DeLuise (poetic license).

It was a gorgeous night, so the four of us just soaked up the atmosphere (along with, surprisingly, a couple of bottles of wine), and finally took a nice stroll back to the hotel. Entering our room we heard no screams, so we figured Kim and Mary had made it safely to their room.

Sadly, this was it for the French countryside. The Dordogne, Loire and Normandy would be in our rear-view mirror as we headed for our final three days in Paris tomorrow. As it turned out, those places were not the only thing that would be in our rear-view mirror, because tomorrow I would take my three passengers on a harrowing ride through the streets of Paris, complete with zipping around the Arc de Triomphe and going where no rental car has ever gone before (or, at least, they shouldn’t have).

Next: Day Seventeen – Mr. Maitai’s Wild Ride, Lane Violation, Where The Hell Did They Put Our Rental Car Agency, Dining In The Rain, The Good Samaritan, Service With A Smile, The Rue You-Know-What, Fancy Meeting You Here and A Return To Ray Romano’s Restaurant

Day Seventeen – Mr. Maitai’s Wild Ride, Lane Violation, Where The Hell Did They Put Our Rental Car Agency, Dining In The Rain, The Good Samaritan, Service With A Smile, The Rue You-Know-What, Fancy Meeting You Here and A Return To Ray Romano’s Restaurant

As a noisy, cute chat noir rambled around the lovely breakfast room at La cour sainte Catherine, we all sat down at a table thankful that no one had fallen into the street or conked their head. There was a nice spread that included yogurt, cereal, croissants with boysenberry jam, apple cider along with lemon meringue and apple Galettes. We were ready for the relaxing two hour drive into Paris, of which the first hour and forty five minutes was relaxing.

Our first stop in Paris was going to be the Hotel Bastille de Launay, 42 rue Amelot, in the 11th arrondissement. We would drop off our luggage, and then go find our rental car drop-off spot, which I had stupidly made in Montparnasse and forgot to change after I booked our hotel. Never drink martinis while making reservations.

I joked with the gang as we headed into Paris, “I sure hope we don’t have to drive around the Arc du Triomphe.” I had done that once in 1986 and nearly scared my traveling companion half to death with my erratic driving.

“I’ve got some interesting information for you,” Kim said. I quickly gave him a glance, and he had a sly smile on his face. “Madame Bleu has us going around the Arc,” he reported. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Mary and Tracy already bracing for what was sure to be a horrific accident. Kim seemed resigned to his ultimate fate.

Careening in and out of traffic, the Arc loomed in the distance. “The Arc is dead ahead,” I said, which was probably a poor choice of words looking back on it. Soon we were whizzing around the monument with about 100 other cars, motorcycles and trucks. It was like a legal Demolition Derby. Since there are really no lanes, it is every driver for his or her self, and being a rather aggressive person behind the wheel, I was able to navigate that bad boy Audi around the Arc with no difficulty. “Phew,” I said, and then I opened my eyes.

Shortly, I was zipping along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées (well not really zipping because of the traffic) and through the streets of Paris we traveled, amazed pedestrians looking on in awe of this American speed demon. I must admit it gave me a cool adrenaline rush to drive in this city. I can’t say my passengers felt the same way. About ten minutes later, we arrived at the hotel, dumped the luggage, and it was on to Montparnasse.

Similarly to when we drove into Bayeux, we were lacking one small (yet important) piece of information; we had no address, and it was not on the rental agreement. We figured it had to be at or near the railway station so away we went.

Madame Bleu had done pretty well on this day so far, but soon she made a mistake that I might be paying for in the future. She instructed me to turn à droite at the signal. “Hey this is cool,” I said. “This is just one lane and we’re the only people in it.” Then came the words I have heard so often on our vacations.

“Tom, you idiot (I believe it was all said in unison), you’re driving in the taxi lane.” Sure enough, this was the lane reserved for taxis and busses, and although I was making great time, there were two fairly large problems. One, I was headed now in the wrong direction and (2) there were signs along the way saying that cameras were monitoring any “idiots” illegally driving in this lane. Thankfully we have no children to put through college, because we saw a few of those signs as I hopelessly tried to find some way to exit this lane of horror.

After about five minutes (although it seemed like an hour), I was finally able to exit the lane, and we were headed back toward Montparnasse. We neared the station and saw signs for rental car agencies, lots of them. Of course, none of them were Europcar, which happened to be ours. Somehow, Tracy and Mary finally saw a miniscule sign pointing us down into a parking garage.

After passing signs to about 100 other car rental companies, Kim finally jumped out at a competitor’s kiosk, and we were directed to Europcar. We gave them our paperwork and were on our way for our last days in Paris.

We took the metro back to the Bastille metro station, walking out near the Opera Bastille. It was pouring down rain. We hadn’t eaten since our breakfast feast and our hotel would not let us check in until after 3 p.m., but there across the street loomed a restaurant, La Bastille, 8 place de la Bastille. The food, contrary to TA reviews that I read when I returned home, was quite good.

The guy who greeted us at the door of La Bastille was charming with a smile a mile wide, and we asked to be seated outside (under cover, of course) to enjoy a meal in the rain in Paris.

Kim had a Caesar salad with chicken; Mary some French Onion soup; Tracy a penne pasta with green veggies and I had a really good Croque Monsieur.

It was also rather magical to have the rain pouring down, sitting in a Paris café and watching hundreds of people with colorful umbrellas stroll by like it was a sunny day. These are the memories of Paris I always cherish.

Upon exiting, we really did not know what direction to head (shocking, eh), although we had driven in this location only about an hour before. A lovely, middle-aged French woman (from Lyon it turned out) saw four drenched Americans holding a map and looking like, well, tourists. She asked if she could help, and sure enough she pointed us in the right direction.

Since it was not quite 3 p.m., we did what we always do when we have a few minutes to kill…we stopped and each had a glass of wine. The rain was letting up, so a little after 3 we were back at the Hotel Bastille de Launay.

This hotel turned out have perhaps the nicest, most informative front desk people I have encountered on either pleasure or business trips anywhere I have traveled in the world. For three days they were helpful with directions, restaurant reservations or anything else our crew needed.

We all freshened up, and since we had 7:30 reservations at Le Florimond (our hotel in Bayeux made these for us), we hopped on the metro to go see a part of Paris that Kim had only read and heard about, that dreaded Fodor’s Bermuda Triangle of controversy, the rue Cler.

First of all, amazingly for all you rue Cler haters, Rick Steves and his entourage were nowhere to be found. Secondly, this supposedly dead street only occupied by a few Americans in dorky clothes sporting blue travel books, was actually quite vibrant on this drizzly Thursday afternoon…and I have the photos to prove it. Finally, Mon Dieu, the most prevalent accent I heard while we walked on the street was French. Perhaps Thursday is “French Day” on the rue Cler, a day when they let locals shop and eat without hordes of tourists saying, “Happy traveling.”

As we walked along this “tourist trap” of a street, Kim said to me, “You know, I have never had a Grand Marnier crepe.” In an orange liqueur-laden minute, we were standing at a crepe stand ordering the Grand Marnier crepe. Obviously our “Crepe guy” had not made one of those since 2010, because it took about 15 minutes for him to find the Grand Marnier in between tending to his patrons. It was no problem, however, because the rest of us explored some more of the shops.

Once Kim got the crepe, I told our group we should leave, because if I wrote in the trip report that we had spent this much time on the rue Cler, I would probably be shunned from writing anything else on the Fodor’s Board and my credibility (what little I have) would be gone forever.

We hustled over to the Eiffel Tower and took the requisite photos that would assure our friends back home that we were really in France. As we walked back from the Eiffel Tower, there in the distance was a familiar looking couple. Sure enough, it was our Seattle friends from the Overlord Tour in Bayeux. We were happy to see they were still healthy and had not caught whatever deadly disease our guide had going on.

After exchanging pleasantries, I jokingly said, “Hey, see you tomorrow.” It was still only about 7 p.m., so we walked along Avenue de la Motte-Picquet, a street I only remember because I call it Mott The Hoople, a 1970s band that was popular back when I was one of all the young dudes.

Standing in front of a beautiful florist shop, the skies burst open with a downpour of biblical proportions (we’re from California, a drizzle is biblical to us). So about 7:20, we arrived at the front door of Le Florimond, 19 Avenue de la Mott the Hoople (I mean Motte-Picquet), and there to greet us was our main man from four years ago, Mr. Ray Romano.

OK, it wasn’t really Ray, but I’ll be damned if the owner of this place doesn’t look just like him. He lead us to our table, and with his Foghorn Leghorn tie given to him by a patron of his restaurant, took our order of four Le Florimond cocktails to start off the evening. The cocktail consisted of sparkling wine with black cherries (really good black cherries). We were also served an amuse-bouche to start.

The menu was pretty similar to what it had been at Christmas 2008.

Tracy started with Ravioles de homard, brunoise de legumes (lobster raviolis with some veggies) and then had Couscous de legumes for her Plat.

Kim dined on the Sea Bass, while Mary opted for the Split Pea soup and duck with eggplant, figs and apricots.

I started with a Terrine of Veal Shank with a citron confit. For dinner, I ordered the confit de canard (I was confit to be tied I guess) with roasted garlic potatoes. Everything was really good, and by the time we ordered dessert, mostly older Americans packed the place. Since we were all older Americans, too, we didn’t complain.

Tracy had been dreaming of her dessert for the past four years, the Tierce de sorbets ou glaces, compote de pommes au coquelicot (although she had been dreaming about it in English since she doesn’t speak French).

Roughly translated, Tracy had a serving of three ice creams: vanilla bean, pistachio cream caramel and a dark chocolate with chocolate bits.

I was not disappointed with my dessert choice. I had a Tartelette sablée de cacao à la clémentine, which to me translated into a really good chocolate and orange thing. With wine and our cocktails, the bill came to 194€. It was another nice meal at Le Florimond. If you want to hang out with only French people, this is probably not your spot. But if you want a good dinner with an Everybody Loves Raymond look-alike as your main server, you can’t do much better than this.

Back at the hotel, I told Tracy I hoped I would be able to climb to the top of Notre Dame the following morning, because the weather was supposed to be pretty good. Although that task never came to fruition, we did get to go to some places I had never visited on any of our trips to Paris, including one where we ran into some musical greats from the past couple of centuries.

Next: Day Eighteen - No Room At The Top, Sac It To Me, Break On Through To The Other Side, Finally Some Beef Bourguignon, Fancy Meeting You Here...Again, Organ Concert, My Favorite View Of Paris, Damn We Should Have Gone Here Today and Getting Ready For Our Final Day

Le Florimond is one of my favorite restaurants in Paris. And, if you want to dine there with a room full of French people, make a 9pm reservation...we were the only English speakers in the place at that time!

Personally, I don't care what language is spoken at a restaurant if the meal is decent. Le Florimond has been good on both occasions we have gone, although I wish they'd change up the menu a little more.

The same thing happened to my husband, i.e. he ended up driving around the Arch. That was May of 2006, and he proudly tells the story (over and over and...) that he did it without hurting anyone, including our traveling companions. It was harrowing, though!

"Confit to be tied." Really? LOL, just kidding - love your sense of humor and writing style. Thanks again for posting.

One of my friends tells about being in France with her family in the fifties. Her family was of French descent, had relatives there, and is bilingual. At the end of their stay, her father was going to return the rental car and, as he was going to have to pay for a full tank of gas, decided he wanted to return it with just a few drops. Anyway, she and one of her brothers went with him. To use up gas, he deliberately drove round and round the Arc, but misjudged and wound up running out of gas on one of his circuits.

Her brother spilled the beans to her mother about the whole adventure. She was only five but does remember that her mother was not amused. However, fifty years later the mother was able tell the story with a chuckle.

Day Eighteen - No Room At The Top, Sac It To Me, Break On Through To The Other Side, Finally Some Beef Bourguignon, Organ Concert, My Favorite View Of Paris, Damn We Should Have Gone Here Today and Getting Ready For Our Final Day

While Kim and Mary slept in a bit, Tracy and I hit the pavement in search of, well in Paris “in search of” means whatever comes next. As I have said, I really wanted to climb to the top of Notre Dame since it was something I had done nearly every decade of my life.

On our stroll toward the Seine, we ducked into Eglise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, which was constructed in the 17th century. We arrived at Notre Dame in time to see that there was an hour’s wait to climb to the top. “No thanks, “ I said, “we’ll just have to come back to Paris again this decade (I’m pretty sure we can accomplish that goal).”

Instead, as the skies cleared up, we hopped on the metro and after a couple of changes, we arrived at a Paris landmark that, for some reason, we had never ventured inside (or if we had, neither of us remember doing it).

Sacré-Couer Basillica lay ahead after we got off the metro, and although we could have taken the funicular to reach it, Tracy and I climbed the 220 or so stairs (have to walk off some of those dinners somewhere). The views back toward Paris were beautiful, and inside we walked.

The first things we saw at Sacré-Couer stirred amazement in both Tracy and me. Entering the church and standing only a few yards away stood two figures I recognized immediately…Kim and Mary. Great minds think alike, I guess. Sacré-Couer was jammed with people both inside and out. It was quite impressive, so I can’t believe we would have forgotten going there, however French wine does sometimes provide that amnesiac effect.

Our official art connoisseurs, Kim and Mary, decided they were going to hang out in Montmartre for a while, so Tracy and I rode the metro to our next destination, which would be another first-time spot for us to visit. This is a place where the stars hang out, albeit for the last time.

About all I knew about Père Lachaise Cemetery was that Jim Morrison was buried inside its walls. Once we bought the map, we realized that a lot of famous and not-so-famous people have made this their last place of residency.

The cemetery was gorgeous (kind of a weird word to use for a cemetery) on this late morning excursion. The fallen leaves blowing on the ground juxtaposed against some of the incredibly cool tombs made for a very interesting walk.

“This is where I want to hang out after I die,” I told Tracy. “Just build one of these mini-house tombs, and we can do some pretty fancy après-death entertaining of the spirits.” I think Tracy believed I had already been hitting the spirits when I said that.

With our map, we found some of the more famed musicians buried here. Wandering through these tombs with a view, our first overture to its musical guests was Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, which was just a prelude to Polish composer Frédéric Chopin.

We broke on through to the other side of the cemetery to see the somewhat inglorious grave (at least compared to most of the others here) of Jim Morrison, which was literally The End of the line for the Doors’ lead singer. We even ran into some rather bizarre looking people wearing Doors t-shirts, but as we all know, People Are Strange.

A couple of other notables who “reside” here include French singer Édith Piaf and American dancer Isadora Duncan, who is the person responsible for me having an aversion to wearing scarves.

After spending about 90 minutes wandering Père Lachaise, Tracy and I hopped back on the metro and exited at Saint-Michel. The combination of extreme hunger and a sudden rainstorm forced our hand, and we stopped in at the restaurant, Chez Clément. I had been yearning for some beef bourguignon, and, since it was Friday, Chez Clément had it on the menu. It was good, but nothing like the beef bourguignon I would dine on the following day.

Tracy’s lunch was also tasty; roasted beets with mustard and fleur de sel along with a ravioli with wilted leeks. As we sat at a window table, Tracy exclaimed, “Look, there are our friends from Seattle.” Ok, friends might have been a little much, since we don’t even know their names.

In any event, I hopped up from the table, ran out and yelled, “Hey, fancy seeing you guys again.” Unfortunately, I had passed right by the Seattle couple who we had met on our Normandy D-Day Tour, so by the time I blurted out the sentence, it was directed at someone else, who immediately turned around and looked at me like I was a crazy person (don’t go there). I then turned to the real Seattle couple who were either (1) happy to say “hello” again or (2) fearful I was some kind of a bizarre vacation stalker.

Once again, the skies had turned blue after that brief shower, so when we left the restaurant, Tracy and I did what we love to do best in Paris…walk around aimlessly and just enjoy the city. We strolled around Saint Germain over to the Seine where we saw that bridge that has all those locks (yet no bagels) and then over to Saint-Louis and back to Notre Dame, where the wait to climb to the top rivaled Space Mountain at Disneyland. Since they have no Fast Passes at Notre Dame, I was finally resigned to the fact that I would not be going up on this trip.

Minutes later, we were back on the metro headed to La Madeleine. This was the first time I remember seeing the colorful flowers on the stairs in front of the church. Inside there was a gentleman playing the organ, and the music resonated throughout the church. It was beautiful.

Suddenly, a tourist (not me) who was sitting in one of the chairs listening to the music, got up and walked right up to the organist and started taking his picture. I was concerned he might request In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, but the guy finally went back to his seat.

We then meandered back cross the street to our favorite French store, Hediard, just to check it out since we would be back tomorrow to buy some items we just can’t live without.

Since the day was so lovely, including those stupendous Paris clouds, Tracy and I took the metro to Printemps and took the 75 different escalators (slight exaggeration) to the top. We had gone here in 2006 on Michael Osmans’s walking tour of Paris, and we loved the views then, and on this day they were equally stunning.

Kim and Mary were also taking advantage of the day, walking various parts of Paris. Together, the four of us stayed relatively out of trouble.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we were all pooped. As we started to take a short nap, I thought, “Damn, there’s a place I want to visit that I forgot all about.” The Promenade planteé had been on my radar, but I guess my radar had shut down for a while.

I went downstairs, and the clerk at the desk printed me out a little Google map of where it was located. The Promenade planteé was nearby, so we decided to go there the following morning, because we knew that Kim and Mary would enjoy it, too.

Since the four of us had walked all over Paris, we decided to find a nearby café for dinner in the Marais. We came across a little brassiere whose name escapes me. The meal was fine, if not memorable (as is the name of the restaurant), and the waiter was a crack-up. Whatever the meal (almost), you can’t beat dining outside in Paris under an awning on a drizzly Friday evening while sipping wine, can you? I think not.

Saturday would be our last day in Paris, and as unmemorable as our dinner was on this night, tomorrow’s meals would more than compensate, both in taste and ambiance. As a matter of fact, tomorrow would turn out to be, perhaps, my favorite complete dining day experiences…ever!

Next: Days Nineteen and Twenty – Planteé Lovely, Free Musée, The Butt Heard Round The World, Your Table Has Waited For You, One Last Look At History, This Sure Beats The Water Lilies, Shop Till We Drop, I See Dead People, Dinner With An Attitude and Au Revoir Beautiful Paris/Bonjour LAX Hell

Days Nineteen and Twenty – Planteé Lovely, Free Musée, The Butt Heard Round The World, Your Table Has Waited For You, One Last Look At History, This Sure Beats The Water Lilies, Shop Till We Drop, I See Dead People, Dinner With An Attitude and Au Revoir Beautiful Paris/Bonjour LAX Hell

Never in a million years would I think that my favorite day of meals would actually begin with a quick stop at McDonald’s, but when this group needs caffeine, it’s any port in a storm. Trying to cover my face in case someone wanted to tag me on Facebook, I bought a café au lait, and we were on our way to Promenade Planteé.

It was overcast, but not yet raining as we found the stairs that took us to Paris’ version of New York City’s High Line, but Promenade Planteé came first. The pathway follows the old Vincennes railway line. Construction started on this walkway in the late 80s and was completed by the mid 90s. According to various sites, Promenade Planteé was the first elevated park in the world, and the path stretches nearly five kilometers.

On this morning we ran into joggers (not literally) and folks out for a leisurely Saturday morning stroll. It’s a beautiful greenbelt that affords some nice views of Parisian architecture from a different perspective. Just like if I lived in NYC and had the High Line at my disposal, if I lived in Paris, Promenade Planteé would be a place I would take many a walk (no jogging).

We did not walk the entire length of Promenade Planteé, because we had only sipped some coffee and now needed something a little more substantial. A nearby pâtisserie in the 12th arrondissement, about a block from Promenade Planteé, beckoned us, and we devoured the best croissants, pain aux raisin pastries and caramel éclairs we had eaten on the trip. Surprisingly, I was the only one of us to buy two (I only needed to fit in my pants one more day and night, so what the hell).

Back on the metro, we headed to our ‘hood so we could walk over to the Musée Carnavalet, which tells the history of Paris through furniture, paintings, sculptures and a myriad of other things. The museum was free on this Saturday morning, but since we didn’t want to spend an enormous amount of time here, we did not purchase the audio guide. In hindsight, next time I am in Paris I will get the guide, because I would love to know more about its history and what we were looking at as we roamed from room to room.

Being the revolutionary sadist that I am, I was quite partial to the art depicting the guillotine, showing the victims as they went out of their heads spilling blood into a bucket. We also saw a painting that looked exactly like Jack Benny, who I don’t think lived back in that time period.

After our museum visit, Kim and Mary headed in one direction, while Tracy and I were off to the Centre Georges Pompidou, not to go in the museum, but to see a recently unveiled statue I had see on CNN International a couple of nights previously.

This statue had nothing to do with ancient history, but (or should I say “butt”) it was from pretty recent history. Outside the Pompidou Center is a 16-foot statue of Zinedine Zidane's head butt of Italy’s Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup. Hey, anyone can go see the Mona Lisa. This is art, baby!

Hunger reared its ugly head again, so we were on the metro back to Saint-Michel in search of a restaurant where we had enjoyed a delicious lunch in 2006. I guess I haven’t killed all my brain cells, because soon we were standing in front of Chez Fernand at 9 rue Christine. The rain started pouring down, and fortuitously the restaurant was open.

Walking inside, we were greeted by a pretty young lady, who said in perfect English (damn, how do they know), “Is this table fine?”

It sure was. It was the same table we dined at in 2006. Now if only the food was as good as we remembered. As it turned out, it was better than we remembered.

We started with a Kir Royale to toast the trip and our return to one of our favorite Paris restaurants. Tracy started with a green bean salad with toasted hazelnuts and then had the Crab bisque. Tres delicious!

I opened with escargots and for my main course I had the “Legendary” beef bourguignon (that’s what it says on the menu). The beef bourguignon basically melted in my mouth. I was in culinary heaven. It would soon get better when dessert arrived.

I had never eaten a “normal” Baba au Rhum, just the fancy and delectable one we had ordered at Le P’tit Resto in Bayeux. Our server brought over a rum-soaked sponge cake with Chantilly on top. She drizzled some rum on top of that, and then put the bottle on the table. “If you want more, pour as much as you want,” she said. Obviously, she had never met me.

To be honest, there was more than enough booze on the Baba au Rhum, and it was delicious, too. I think the bill was about 100€, but it could have been twice that and I wouldn’t have cared (I guess that’s why I have to work for the rest of my life). It was the perfect lunch experience for our final day in Paris.

Back outside, the rain was still heavy, which was ok with us since we had one more museum to explore. Not too far away was the Musée national du Moyen Âge (Musée de Cluny). Cost to get in was 8€, which included an audio guide.

There are some statues of heads that were originally on the façade of Notre Dame, a couple of rooms with beautiful stained glass windows and lots of other antiquities. We walked into a room that contained six 15th century tapestries called The Lady And The Unicorn.

The last time I sat in a room and stared at a series of art was in 2006 when we visited L’Orangerie to see Monet’s Water Lilies. Although I am in the minority, the Water Lilies did absolutely nothing for me except make me go temporarily blind.

The Lady And The Unicorn Tapestries, on the other hand, impressed me very much. Que sera!

Well, enough history. It was time for shopping. Back on the metro, we were on our way back to Hediard for some Christmas shopping. As we stepped inside, who did we see? No, not the people from Seattle, but there were Kim and Mary who had the same idea. No wonder we travel with each other.

Tracy bought about 100 bags of Hediard’s Herbes de Provence, which Tracy swears are the best in the world. She gives them out as Christmas gifts. She always runs out, which I think is just a ploy on her part to get us back to Paris (like that’s a hard sell). We also purchased some white peppercorns, and the best jam in the world, Hediard’s Peach and Raspberry preserves. I should have bought ten of them, because the jar was empty within one week of returning home.

Tracy and I left to go back to the hotel, while Kim and Mary were not far behind. It was about 4:30 when blue skies could be seen outside our hotel window. Tracy was napping, so I knocked on Kim and Mary’s door. They were playing cards, and I could tell they were done for the day, too.

Not me dammit! I only had a few more hours of Paris sunlight so outside I went with no plan (my usual MO). My first stop was Chez Janou, about a five-minute walk from the hotel. Out hotel had made reservations for that evening at my behest, but after reading some reviews I was a little worried about my choice. I don’t think I have ever read so many mixed reviews about a place, including many who said the greeter was somewhere between “Witty,” “Brusque” and “Attila The Hun.”

I sat at the bar and had a beer. The guy didn’t kill any patrons while I sipped my brew, and the restaurant looked like a French bistro right out of the movies, so I figured, what the heck, we’re on.

Back outside in the sunlight, I walked over to Place des Vosges for some last-minute Paris photos. Walking underneath the arch, I could hear raucous sounds, loud music and saw a large group of strangely attired people congregated in the center. As I got closer, I realized many of these people were covered in blood.

For a minute, I thought I had wandered into the filming of one of the “Twilight” movies. I hadn’t seen this much blood since the Limoges Train Station.

There was everything from Pirate Zombies to Military Zombies to Hot Chick Zombies to a Zombie who was a fire-eater. I asked someone what was going on. He said politely, “Who are you? Are you from the United States?”

Proudly I stated, “I am Sir-Bleed-A-Lot from California.” I never knew I could scare a zombie, but he did stick around long enough to tell me that this was the annual Zombie Walk (I guess it was the Time Of The Season). For the next 20 minutes, I walked around with the undead snapping pictures on a now gorgeous late Saturday afternoon.

I bid au revoir to my bloody friends, and as I walked back under the arch I saw a man in a red and black hat with a long blue scarf singing some incredible opera arias or whatever they’re called. I was already missing Paris, and we hadn’t even had our final meal.

Back at the hotel, I rousted the other undead (aka Tracy, Mary and Kim). We had 8 p.m. reservations at Chez Janou, and I didn’t want to be late just in case Attila (I mean the maître d') decided he wanted to throw us out on our keisters.

We arrived at Chez Janou (2 Rue Roger Verlomme) a few minutes before 8, and I wandered inside. The server asked if we all were there, so I hurriedly herded our group inside, and we were seated at a table that somewhat straddled the inside of the restaurant near the bar and the outside patio. Chez Janou was already packed.

The maître d' everyone had written about stood next to our table holding four menus, which we assumed were for us. Not wanting to incur his possible wrath, we waited for him to make the first move.

Then, in a Magic Johnson behind-the-back-pass moment, as he was talking to someone else, he deftly placed the menus behind his back and whipped them all to Kim in one swift motion without uttering a word to us. It was, for lack of a better term, a “magic” moment.

Dining at Chez Janou was a hoot. The food was good, the wait staff was friendly and the ambiance was pure Paris (at least how I picture it in my mind); loud and fun.

I had an incredible Goat Cheese in a Ratatouille to start and a good entrecôte de boeuf for the main course.

Tracy started with a green bean salad with smoked duck and a delicious Risotto with Scallops.

Kim decided to have mussels in pesto that he enjoyed and lamb chops for his main course.

Mary had the consensus best meal starting with her French Onion Soup and transitioning to a fabulous lamb shank with mashed potatoes.

Then came our very fun dessert, the Mousse au chocolate.

I was the bottomless pit who had ordered it, but instead of a small bowl of chocolate mousse, I was given an incredibly large bowl of thick, rich and delectable chocolate mousse. The waiter said, “You can have as much as you want. Just don’t eat out of the bowl.”

Ina Garten (aka the Barefoot Contessa) has a story where she tells how her husband ate the entire bowl at a restaurant, not realizing that isn't really what you're supposed to do.

Knowing that if I ate too much of this dish our plane might have a hard time taking off the following day due to the extra weight, I kept my gorging to a minimum. Dessert was fantastic!

The Chez Janou experience capped off our terrific day of dining and, in essence, capped off another unforgettable trip to Europe. Tomorrow, we would head to the airport early for our flights to Los Angeles and San Diego.

From Paris to the Dordogne to the Loire to Normandy and back again, we all had more fun than four people deserve to have in 20 days. Torn skin, riverboat rides, endangered ducks, gorgeous chateaus, the D-Day Beaches and delicious dinners were now only memories (except for the bandages still on my arm).

We flew back on Sunday morning and arrived at LAX at about 2:30. It took us nearly 2 ½ hours to go through Immigration and Customs on that Sunday, but not even those idiots (I believe the snails I ate in France moved faster…even after death) could put a damper on our wonderful France vacation.

Our friends met us at the airport, bearing our traditional welcome-home meal of tacos (of course, thanks to our friendly, slow Customs officials, they weren’t quite as hot as they had been two hours before). On the drive home, when our friends asked what our favorite part of the trip was, the answer was easy and immediate. “All of it!”

Tom, thank you. You have an amazing power of enjoyment that shines through everything you write. I should be envious of your trip but reading your trip report is the next best thing to traveling there myself.

I hope to get to Chez Fernand and Chez Janou—the meals sounded wonderful.

Although I am in the minority, the Water Lilies did absolutely nothing for me except make me go temporarily blind.—I hate to agree with you but I do. I think Monet’s cataracts “muddied” the colors in his later works. Don’t know if that applies to the ones in the Orangerie though.

Although I am in the minority, the Water Lilies did absolutely nothing for me except make me go temporarily blind.—I hate to agree with you but I do. I think Monet’s cataracts “muddied” the colors in his later works.>>

did you ever get to the Marmottan in the 18th, TD? we went there after visiting the Monet exhibition and the display that they had in the basement of the later water lillies was very striking - they were much brighter, brasher and less defined.

well worth a visit, though I don't know if all the pictures that they had there during the main exhibition [Jan '11] are still there.

I've not made it to the Orangerie yet, so I can't make the comparison.

Thanks all for hanging in there. At least I got the TR done in the same calendar year.

I think our next big trip will be to Virginia and Pennsylvania for some American history, but there are so many more places in Europe I want to explore. I have a cool idea for my next Paris trip, too, but I will need a month or more to do it like I want, so I might have to wait until I retire or win Powerball, whichever comes first.

Really enjoyed your whole T/R, maitaitom! We, too, have our bucket list of travel destinations, many of them in Europe; though a return to Paris is always near the top. Chez Fernand is a fav of ours. Thanks for your entertaining journal!

MTT
Thank you for a wonderful trip report. I just discovered it a couple of days ago, so I was able to enjoy it without waiting for the next installment. Yaa!! My DH and I were in the Dordogne, Loire Valley and Paris earlier this year and based on your report I am ready to be back in Paris now. Many happy future travels.

Hey Tom, There are some beautiful areas in PA. Although very touristy in parts, the Amish area is quite lovely-parts of it reminded me of Tuscany. Lancaster intersting. Gettysburg has lots about Civil War and is a sweet town.

Philly is wonderful--I swear I felt the spirits of Adams and Jefferson in Constitution Hall. Lots of great local food as well. We visited the Barnes Foundation before it moved--fellow who bought lots of art and put it up in his place of business and made his employees look at it at lunch time! But such a collection it is.

Rhody and I stayed in the Inn at Meander Plantation near Orange VA and they had a cooking school that was SO much fun.

Vinyards (which probably pale to CA's), Monticello, UVA, Charlottesville--lots there. Monroe's home was being regutted when we were there but it's great also. Of course, you could always return to DC--that group has met 3 more times since then!

PS, annhig, we did get to Marmottan and some of those works got over to the Walters in Baltimore, Md.--some of the colors were truly terrible. That being said, Giverny is still on my "to see" list.

annhig, we did get to Marmottan and some of those works got over to the Walters in Baltimore, Md.--some of the colors were truly terrible>>

Did you think so, TD? [well, obviously you did or you wouldn't have said it]. When we saw them in the Marmottan we had spent the morning at the main Monet exhibition in the Grand Palais, and then we had lunch at le cinq.

I'll leave it to you to decide which of those two experiences might have made us more favourably disposed towards Monet's later works.

Tom, Gettysburg is my home town and I get there often. I hope you'll make it a stop on your PA-VA tour. There are a few things to see other than the battlefield (the orchard country for one), but of course that's the main draw for most visitors.

This will be a busy year since it's the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Gosh! It seems like it was only yesterday.

MTT: Just a thought about Gettysburg: There is a group of older men, probably some informal Battlefield group, one of whom will spend a day with you and take you around to show you how the battle went. It is quite complicated and the actual battle lasted several days as I recall. Well worth having a guide. It is haunting. A friend of ours suggested a guide from this (apparent) group, but it was 15 years ago and I can't remember anyway.

Thanks for sharing your trip! Enjoyable as always. I managed to plan and take a trip to Paris in the time it took you to finish your report. I look forward to seeing the photos on your blog when ready. Will you post the link here?

Hi Digbydog - We rented an Audi 4-door. It fit all of our bags and assorted stuff we bought along the way, including three tablecloths. It was a good sized trunk, and Mary is a packing guru to fit everything in. We had four medium-sized suitcases and two smaller ones for medical (comes in handy when you travel with Sir-Bleed-A-Lot) and other travel stuff.

I believe the cost for exactly two weeks was about $700 when everything was factored in. I'll try to look this up for you and get you better numbers. The car handled great, and I never came close to scratching it on anything...well, except that pesky Arc du Triomphe.

Thanks so much for your quick reply! Do you know whether it was an Audi A3 or A4? We travel fairly light (thankfully no medical bags), but I am worrying about fitting everything in the trunk. We have had rentals where we had to put a bag in the back seat between the kids--although separating them was not always such a bad thing!

It was the A4. If you travel light, you'll be in great shape. We pack everything but the kitchen sink (actually we might have brought a sink on one trip). You'll be fine with that car, plus it drives really nice. I assume since you are going through Limoges, you will be going to Oradour-sur-Glane. It's a powerful experience, and one that I think you shouldn't miss if you get the chance. They really did a great job putting together the museum and telling about the atrocities that happened.

I just had to take the time to read your very funny, interesting TR again. You took me back to many of the Paris, Dordogne, Loire Valley, spots that we love. You also peeked my interest in the Normandy area that we have yet to visit.

Bravo, and thanks for taking the time to entertain and inform us. You have a wonderful way with words.

"Still, there are promised photos, LOL. As I said earlier, no pressure."

Not that I am going to post this day by day again, but at least I have (finally) started with our first day in Paris on my website (you can see the Larry Fine statue at the Musée d’Orsay and Kim's cool picture of my flaming crepe).

When I finally get this done, I'll put it up for the few who actually want to go through this whole thing again. That said, the spelling is better, punctuation is improved (although I always find more mistakes every time I look at it) and there are a few additions I made (yes, even more stupid puns I'm afraid) to the original (it's funny some of the things you remember long after a trip is concluded). Thanks to all who have commented on the thread. It is appreciated!

Yuk, yuk, yuk.
I love reading about the trips we take with Tom and Tracy afterwards. It brings it all back so vividly. I do agree that seeing the photos by rereading on his website is even more fun, as he embellishes even more.
Write on, Dear MaiTai!
We are ready for another adventure....
Marystar

td- It's just my little travel camera...Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 that was "stolen" at CDG on our return trip from Rome in 2009. Tracy and I each have one as does Mary (but she has a newer one...when you see the cool panorama shots...that will be from her camera). Not sure what Kim uses, but his is "more professional" although our zooms are better according to him. I think I will upgrade before our next trip, but I love how small it is and the quality of the photos. Good luck on your contest photo!

Hi Tom-been rereading your great TR because we are in Paris. As a matter of fact our apt is very near the hotel u stayed in on Rue Amelot. We pass it regularly. Just wondering did u hear the motorcycles in your room? Seems to be a hot spot with the shop there and up those steps, lots of bikes parked. I gather not since u didn't mention it in your usual humorous way in your report.

what I really wanted to ask you about is the Promenade Plantee worth it? I know the NYC High Line well and I see you compared it to that. Are there shops or other stuff or just a nice walk along the path with the views you describe? About how long did it take you to get to it? thanks for any additional info u care to provide us. we're here thru the 28.

"what I really wanted to ask you about is the Promenade Plantee worth it? I know the NYC High Line well and I see you compared it to that. Are there shops or other stuff or just a nice walk along the path with the views you describe? About how long did it take you to get to it? thanks for any additional info u care to provide us. we're here thru the 28."

We really liked the Promenade Plantee. It was only about a ten minute walk from our hotel. We did not walk the entire stretch...no shops...but lots of beautiful foliage with cool views of Paris buildings. It was really a peaceful experience in the heart of Paris.

I just figured out the Felix wine that we liked when we were there was from the winery you visited. I recognized the bar in one of your pics (we bought a couple of bottles to go in the bar section of Chez Bruno). I wish we would have eaten there instead of L’Epicerie. Looking forward to the Normandy pics.

Maitaitom, we're beginning to plan some specifics for our trip to the South of France in early September and, as such, re-read your '12 TR which is chock full of ideas for several of the areas we'll visit.

As we're making notes, we're entertained, as usual, by your great writing and pics! Thanks for the informative report!

Maitaitom, happy to learn from your TR that it's not necessary to pre-book a boat (or gabare, as we noted) cruise on the Dordogne River. That's something we definitely have on our list. Also, thanks for the included restaurant reviews.

Among the many positive, happy experiences on this trip, it seems that we'll have to prepare for a period of somberness in Oradour-sur-Glane, akin to Auschwitz.

Glad to get your heads-up" about the dull knives in Sarlat! Good thing we're not foie gras enthusiasts!